Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Verde
One of my favorite salsa recipes! Try our easy roasted salsa verde recipe with lots of flavor thanks to roasted tomatillos, peppers, and garlic. Jump to the Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Recipe or watch our quick video below to see how we make it.
Watch Us Make Salsa Verde
Salsa verde is one of my favorite salsas. It brightens just about everything you dip into it or serve with it — hello salsa verde chicken nachos. To make our favorite version, we roast tomatillos, peppers, and garlic. Roasting makes the salsa extra flavorful. If you are looking for a fresh salsa, try our homemade pico de gallo recipe (it’s so simple to make and everyone loves it).
How to Make Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
Tomatillos are the star in this easy salsa recipe. They look like small green tomatoes and have papery husks. The husks should be removed before cooking them. The tomatillos are added to a baking dish with a jalapeño pepper, a serrano pepper, and a couple cloves of garlic. Then we roast.
Using our oven broiler makes quick work of the roasting. It will take 10 to 12 minutes. Once roasted, remove the skins from the peppers as well as most of the seeds. You could leave them in, just keep in mind the salsa will be much spicier. Since it’s been roasted, the softened garlic flesh easily squeezes out of the peel. Then we throw the tomatillos, peppers, and garlic into a food processor.
In goes some raw onion, lime juice, and cilantro to freshen things up then give the salsa a few pulses and you are done. Easy!
Try These Recipes Using Salsa Verde
- It’s so simple to make these Easy Chicken Enchiladas with salsa verde, chicken, sour cream, cheese and cilantro. The perfect quick and easy dinner.
- Use this salsa verde to make our Crave-worthy Instant Pot Salsa Verde Chicken. The chicken stays juicy, tender and tastes incredible.
- We spoon salsa verde over these Epic Breakfast Tacos with Potatoes and Peppers.
- These Loaded Chicken Nachos are made extra flavorful with salsa verde.
Recipe updated, originally posted September 2009. Since posting this in 2009, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear. – Adam and Joanne
Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Verde
- PREP
Salsa verde is one of our favorite salsas. It brightens just about everything you dip into it or serve it with. Using an oven broiler makes quick work of the roasting. It will take about 15 minutes. Once roasted, it is very easy to remove the skins from the peppers as well as most of the seeds. You could leave them in, just keep in mind the salsa will be much spicier.
Makes approximately 8 servings (about 2 cups)
You Will Need
1 pound tomatillos, husked and rinsed (6 medium tomatillos)
1 jalapeño pepper
1 serrano pepper
2 unpeeled garlic cloves
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock, see our veggie broth or our chicken stock recipe
1/4 medium onion, chopped
1/3 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves and tender stems
1 tablespoon lime juice, or more to taste
1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
Directions
Heat the broiler with a rack about 4 inches below the heat source. Place the tomatillos, jalapeño, serrano pepper, and garlic into a baking dish. Broil, turning occasionally, until they’re blackened in spots, 10 to 12 minutes.
Remove the baking dish and add chicken stock then use a wooden spoon to scrape any bits stuck to the bottom. Let tomatillos, peppers, and garlic cool.
When they are cool enough to handle, peel most of the skins from the peppers and remove seeds. For a spicier salsa, leave in some or all of the seeds. Remove the softened garlic from peel.
Add roasted tomatillos, peppers, garlic flesh, onion, cilantro, lime juice, and the salt to a food processor. Pour about half of the liquid from the baking dish then pulse 3 to 4 times or until the salsa is mostly smooth and no big chunks of tomatillo remain, scraping down the sides as necessary. Adjust with more liquid, lime juice, or salt based on consistency and taste.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- If you cannot find serrano peppers, substitute with jalapeño.
- The salsa will keep well covered in the fridge for about 1 week.
- Nutrition Facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values.
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #inspiredtaste — We love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste
Nutrition Per Serving: Serving Size 1/4 cup / Calories 31 / Protein 2 g / Carbohydrate 7 g / Dietary Fiber 1 g / Total Sugars 5 g / Total Fat 0 g / Saturated Fat 0 g / Cholesterol 0 mg
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Looking forward to making this.
I just made this tonight and it is lip smacking good. I have been vegan for 8 months now and am always looking for new recipes. I love the flavor of this. Will definitely add it to my favorites file. Thanks for sharing.
How long does this keep in fridge after making? Looks delish! Patricia
Hi Patricia, I’d expect that the salsa will keep well covered in the fridge for about 1 week.
Easy to throw together. I poured in glass mason jars and threw them in the freezer.
I made this today and loved it. I blogged about your recipe on my blog. Will also add your hashtag to my instagram post. Thanks for sharing a fabulous recipe!
Made this recipe tonight, I have to say it was wonderful. Followed the recipe exactly, then made chicken enchilada verdes with it. Thank you for such a great dish. Everyone ate too much. Will definite use this recipe for now on.
Is there a way to can this salsa? Do I need to add more lime juice or would this amount work?
Hi Brittany, Great question. We have never tried canning this salsa (or any salsa). If you do give it a try, we’d love to hear any tips you gather along the way.
I haven’t had any salsa Verde in the U.S. that was great, this is delicious! I definitely think I like it much better than red sauce, I know it’s WAY less of a problem for my ulcer, I looked it up and TOMATILLOS are better as far as acid reflux ppl who have problems W/ MEXICAN dishes…there is a reason for its alkalinity/Acidity level. So anyone you cook for who has issues with red sauces-mexican foods, make the TOMATILLOS sauces over tomato where you can..THANK YOU SO MUCH,i used your shredded chicken recipe as well , everything exactly the same but using half corn/flour tortillas/ in the chicken enchilada salsa Verde recipe, this way we can decide what we prefer, (I heard corn is standard in Mexico for enchiladas but ALSO from Mexican person, depends what region in Mexico your from,that it is related to and that both are used..if you had homemade tortillas on here I would have done it too!
Looking forward to trying more of your recipes!! THANKS AGAIN FOR A AWESOMELY DELICIOUS RECIPE
you have to live in texas to get the best red or green salsa, homemade tortillas too…
Cant wait to try thank you so much god bless everyone
I used 8 serranos and roasted NM green chile. I didn’t roast the tomatillos (since the NM chile was already roasted) but cooked them with the serranos. This all went into the blender with a lot of lime juice. No chicken broth was used since I had liquid from the tomatillo/serrano cook-down. Right before serving, added fresh green onion and minced cilantro with lime wedges on the side. Big hit! As you can tell, my family and friends love HEAT!! LOL!
This is the best salsa verde recipe I have ever made. We had this last night with our tacos My family gobbled it up. I will be making this for years to come. Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe.
My sister made some Salsa Verde, she got the recipe from a friend and was sworn to secrecy. She wasn’t allowed to share the recipe she got from a friend. The way they made it was so delicious. When my sister made it, she would give me about 3 canning jars of the salsa and it would be gone in a day and a half it was that good.
I’m glad I found this recipe, even though this recipe is a little different than the way my sister made it, I would love to make this and see what the difference is in both recipes.
What subsitution can I use for the tomatillo? Where I live they don’t sell them. 🙁
You could try underripe tomatoes or just replace with ripe tomatoes for a red salsa.
Canned tomatillos are available, whole or crushed. Walmart typically stocks them in their Latin food section. Not the same as fresh and you can’t roast them, but as long as the chiles are roasted, the flavor of the salsa verde should be fine. If using green tomatoes, add some sugar or agave syrup. Tomatillos have a natural sweetness that green tomatoes don’t have. Just recalled a suggestion I made to a friend…tomatillos always remind me of green apples, not overly sweet, just right. So instead of sugar, I’m thinking a combo of green tomatoes and fresh apple could closely resemble the flavor of tomatillo. Of course, I’m assuming you’ve eaten tomatillo and know the flavor so you can replicate it. I live in a city where I can procure most Latin ingredients readily but I’ll have to actually experiment with the green tomato/apple as a salsa verde base. Sounds like a great combination, don’t you think? Another thought…if the canned tomatillos are low-broiled in a skillet, center oven, until the top browns, one should be able to achieve the roasted flavor needed for this recipe. Hope some of this is helpful!
I made this about an hour ago and could not wait to tell everyone how wonderful it is!!!
Nice! So glad you enjoyed it.
If you add some chopped avocado and put some in the blender with everything you have a creamy salsa which is thicker and yummy!
Sounds great!
This is my all-time favorite salsa recipe! I love the mellow richness of the roasted vegetables. Thanks for sharing. It is a must-have recipe!