Salsa verde is Mexico’s green salsa: tomatillos and green chilies, usually with onion, garlic and cilantro, blended or chopped into a tangy sauce. You’ll find it in the green bottle next to the red one at the taco truck, and in enchiladas verdes. Here’s what’s in it, where it comes from, why one batch is mild and the next one bites, and how it differs from the Italian salsa verde that shares its name.
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What is salsa verde?
Salsa verde means “green sauce” in Spanish, and in Mexican cooking it almost always means a salsa built on tomatillos. You’ll also see it sold as tomatillo salsa or green salsa. The tomatillos give it the color and that bright, tart flavor, and fresh green chilies bring the heat.
Don’t confuse tomatillos with green tomatoes. A tomatillo is a different plant, a small green fruit that grows inside a papery husk, and it’s much more sour than an unripe tomato. If you see tomate or tomate verde on a menu in much of Mexico, it means the tomatillo, and the red tomato goes by jitomate.
Where does salsa verde come from?
Tomatillos are native to Mexico and were grown there long before the Spanish arrived. For the Aztecs and the Maya they were a more important crop than the red tomato, and both words come from Nahuatl: tomatl for the tomatillo and xitomatl for the tomato. Green salsas of tomatillo and chili go back at least to the Aztec Empire, and the Spanish physician Francisco Hernández recorded them after the conquest.
Today you’ll find it on tables all over Mexico and the American Southwest, and every cook makes it a little differently. In New Mexico, “green sauce” usually means something else: a sauce built mostly on roasted green chile instead of tomatillos.
What is salsa verde made of?
A basic salsa verde has just a handful of ingredients:
- Tomatillos: the base of the sauce, giving you both the color and the tang. They’re a nightshade, like tomatoes and peppers, and a close relative of the Cape gooseberry. Peel off the husk and rinse the fruit, since it has a sticky coating.
- Green chilies: usually serrano peppers or jalapeños, and you’ll want them fresh, not dried.
- Onion and garlic: most recipes use white onion and a clove or two of garlic.
- Cilantro: stirred in at the end for a fresh, green finish.
- Salt, and sometimes a squeeze of lime to brighten it.
Jarred versions stick close to that. The label on a jar of Herdez Salsa Verde, for instance, reads tomatillos, chile peppers, onions, salt, cilantro and xanthan gum, a thickener.
What’s the difference between raw, boiled and roasted salsa verde?
The ingredients stay the same, but how you cook the tomatillos changes the flavor:
- Raw (salsa verde cruda): the tomatillos and chilies go into the blender or molcajete uncooked. It’s the freshest and most tart version.
- Boiled (salsa verde cocida): the tomatillos and chilies are simmered until soft, then blended. Cooking takes the edge off the tartness and makes the salsa a little sweeter. Our jalapeño salsa verde is made this way.
- Roasted (salsa verde asada): the tomatillos, chilies and garlic are charred on a comal or under the broiler first. Roasting makes the tomatillos sweeter still and adds a little smoke, and Rick Bayless notes that roasted chilies come out milder, too.
Is salsa verde spicy?
It depends entirely on the chilies, since tomatillos have no heat of their own. A salsa verde made with jalapeños, at 2,500 to 8,000 Scoville heat units, is mild to medium. Want more heat? Switch to serranos, at 10,000 to 23,000 SHU. Our habanero salsa verde takes it much further.
How much chili goes in matters as much as which one, and so do the seeds and ribs. So two jars that look identical can taste very different. Herdez, for one, labels its salsa verde mild. And if a batch comes out too hot, our guide to making salsa less spicy can rescue it.
How is salsa verde different from salsa roja?
Salsa roja is built on red tomatoes and often dried red chilies, so it’s sweeter, rounder and sometimes smoky. Salsa verde swaps in tomatillos and fresh green chilies, so it’s tart and grassy instead. You’ll often see both on the same table, and on the same plate in huevos divorciados, where one egg gets red salsa and the other gets green.
Salsa verde isn’t quite the same as green enchilada sauce, either. Our green enchilada sauce starts with tomatillos but adds poblanos, stock and a little flour to make it a cooking sauce. And mole verde thickens tomatillos and serranos with pumpkin seeds.
Is Italian salsa verde the same thing?
No, Italian salsa verde is an herb sauce with no tomatillos and usually no chilies at all. It’s made from parsley, capers, garlic, anchovies, vinegar and olive oil, sometimes with bread or hard-boiled egg, and it’s the classic sauce for bollito misto, Italy’s mixed boiled meats. In Piedmont it’s called bagnetto verde.
Plenty of other cuisines have a “green sauce” of their own, too:
- Spain: salsa verde is usually a parsley, garlic and white wine sauce for fish, often hake or clams.
- Germany: Frankfurt’s Grüne Soße blends seven herbs (parsley, chives, chervil, borage, sorrel, garden cress and salad burnet) with sour cream, and the herb mix has had protected status in the EU since 2016.
- France: sauce verte today is usually mayonnaise flavored with tarragon and other herbs.
- Argentina: chimichurri, the herb sauce Argentines spoon over grilled meat, is usually counted in the same family.
These European sauces trace back to the parsley green sauces that were common in medieval cooking. Mexican salsa verde has a different history altogether, and if you hear the name on this side of the Atlantic, it almost always means the tomatillo version.
How to use salsa verde
If you’d put red salsa on it, salsa verde works too, and its tang cuts through rich food especially well:
- Tacos and quesadillas: especially with pork, chicken or fish, spooned on at the table.
- Enchiladas and chilaquiles: it’s the sauce that makes them “verdes.”
- Eggs: spooned over fried eggs, scrambled eggs or a breakfast burrito.
- Grilled meat and fish: as a quick sauce straight from the jar, with no cooking needed.
- Chips: on its own, or stirred into guacamole or sour cream for a dip.
Is salsa verde healthy?
For a condiment, it’s a good one: it’s mostly vegetables, with little fat or sugar, so a few spoonfuls add a lot of flavor for very few calories. The one thing to watch in a jar is sodium, so check the label. Our look at whether salsa is good for you goes through the details.
Can you make salsa verde at home?
Yes, and it’s one of the easiest salsas there is. Pick firm tomatillos that fill out their husks, peel and rinse them, then cook them however you like and blend them with the chilies, onion, garlic and cilantro. Our jalapeño salsa verde walks through the boiled version, and you can make it hotter with serranos.
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Related Reading
- Six Types Of Salsa That You Should Know: Salsa verde’s place among the other everyday salsas.
- Pico De Gallo Vs. Salsa: What separates a fresh chopped salsa from a cooked or blended one.
- Serrano Vs. Jalapeño: The two chilies most likely to be in your salsa verde, side by side.