If you’ve eaten at Lomelee’s, you’ve had our salsa verde. It’s the green one in the squeeze bottle on every table, and it’s the most requested recipe we’ve ever had. So here it is, scaled down from our two-gallon batch to something that fits in your blender.
The secret isn’t a secret ingredient. It’s heat. Charring the tomatillos and chiles in a dry skillet gives the salsa a smoky depth that boiled salsa verde just doesn’t have.
Ingredients
Makes about 2 cups.
- 1 pound tomatillos (about 8 medium), husked and rinsed
- 2 serrano chiles (or 1 jalapeño for a milder salsa)
- ½ white onion, cut into thick slices
- 2 garlic cloves, unpeeled
- ½ cup fresh cilantro, stems and all
- Juice of half a lime
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
Method
- Heat a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Don’t add oil.
- Char the vegetables. Add the tomatillos, chiles, onion, and garlic in a single layer. Let them sit until they blister and blacken in spots, then turn them. Tomatillos take 8 to 10 minutes total and should look soft and slightly collapsed. Pull the garlic out after about 5 minutes.
- Cool slightly, then peel the garlic. If you want less heat, remove the seeds from the chiles.
- Blend everything with the cilantro, lime juice, and salt. Pulse rather than puree; a little texture is a good thing.
- Taste and adjust. More salt brightens it. More lime makes it tangier. If it’s too sharp, a pinch of sugar will round it out.
Tips from our kitchen
- Don’t skip the black spots. That char is where the flavor lives. If your tomatillos are just soft and green, keep going.
- Let it rest. The salsa thickens as it sits, because tomatillos are naturally high in pectin. If it gets too thick, loosen it with a tablespoon of water.
- Store it right. It keeps for about five days in a sealed jar in the fridge.
How we use it
At the restaurant, salsa verde goes on our enchiladas verdes, chilaquiles at Sunday brunch, and the Friday fish tacos. At home, Miguel puts it on his scrambled eggs every single morning. Ana thinks that’s a little much. You can decide for yourself.
Lomelee’s is a fictional restaurant, and the people, places, and events in this post are made up for a portfolio demo site.