Salsa Verde, served with Hatch Chiles
A traditional salsa verde recipe with tomatillos and an extra little punch from seasonal Hatch chiles.
It took us an embarrassingly long time to come around on green salsa. We could never see past the fact that it’s… green. Very short-sighted of us, of course. So, what turned the tide? A trip to Chipotle.
As anyone who has been to Chipotle knows, they have a mild fresh tomato salsa, a medium-hot salsa verde and a hot red tomatillo salsa (as well as a corn salsa). The mild salsa has chunks of tomato, which we don’t particularly care for, and we can’t handle the hot-hot stuff, so we settled on the medium salsa verde on our first trip to Chipotle. Much to our surprise, we loved it!
This past Sunday, we bucked the Italian food trend for Sunday dinner and had a taco bar instead. Since we had Hatch chiles we wanted to use, we decided to include a salsa verde along with traditional salsa for the spread.
There are a couple of different variations you can use for making this salsa – if you don’t want to use fresh tomatillos, you can substitute canned (drained) tomatillos, which eliminates the first step in the recipe (and saves some time!). We were dying to use more Hatch chiles since we loved the mac and cheese that we made last week so much, so in keeping with the green theme, we added them to this recipe.
Like Chipotle, we would give this recipe a medium to medium-hot rating on the spiciness scale. You could certainly scale back on the Hatch chiles to lessen the punch, and if Hatch chiles aren’t in season, you can use 1 or 2 jalapeños (seeded) instead.
It took way too long, but we're so glad to have salsa verde in our dip repertoire!
One year ago: Spiced Zucchini Bread with Walnuts and Dried Cranberries
Four years ago: No-Bake Peanut Butter Butterscotch Crisp Cookies
Five years ago: Gingered Carrot Cake Cookies
Six years ago: Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars
Salsa Verde with Hatch Chiles
Yield: 3 cups A traditional salsa verde recipe with an extra little punch from seasonal Hatch chiles. If you cannot get Hatch chiles, you can substitute 1 or 2 jalapeño peppers (seeded) to give the salsa some heat, if desired.- 16 (16) tomatillos, husked (you can substitute 28-ounce can tomatillos, drained, and skip step #1)
- 5 Hatch chiles, roasted and seeded
- 1 cup (16 g) cilantro
- 1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- Juice of 2 limes
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- Place the tomatillos in a medium saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Boil until they turn brownish-green and are soft, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and immediately place into a bowl of ice water.
- Place the drained tomatillos, Hatch chiles, cilantro, onion, garlic, lime juice, salt and cumin in a blender and puree until smooth. Place in an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. The salsa can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.
Notes
Nutritional values are based on one cup
- Yield: 3 cups
- Prep: 10 minutes
- Total: 10 minutes
Ingredients
- 16 ( 16 ) tomatillos, husked (you can substitute 28-ounce can tomatillos, drained, and skip step #1)
- 5 Hatch chiles, roasted and seeded
- 1 cup ( 16 g ) cilantro
- 1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- Juice of 2 limes
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cumin
Method
- Place the tomatillos in a medium saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Boil until they turn brownish-green and are soft, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and immediately place into a bowl of ice water.
- Place the drained tomatillos, Hatch chiles, cilantro, onion, garlic, lime juice, salt and cumin in a blender and puree until smooth. Place in an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. The salsa can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.
