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Green salsas By Fermín Vega

Raw green salsa

Tomatillos, serrano and cilantro, blended raw. Five minutes, no cooking, and sharper and fresher than any cooked version.

Prep
10 min
Total
10 min
Makes
about 1½ cups
Difficulty
Easy
Heat Medium
Method No-cook Blender

Real heat that fades with a drink of water. Jalapeño territory.

Ingredients

Makes about 1½ cups

  • 12 oz tomatillo about 8 small, husked and rinsed
  • 3 serrano pepper
  • ½ bunch cilantro stems included
  • ¼ white onion
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1¼ tsp salt
  • 2 to 4 tbsp water
  • 1 tsp juice lime (optional)

Keeps 3 days refrigerated, in a sealed jar

Method

  1. 1

    Husk the tomatillos and rinse them, rubbing until they stop feeling sticky. That film is bitter and this thirty seconds decides whether the salsa tastes clean or vaguely wrong.

  2. 2

    Quarter the tomatillos. Cut the stems off the serranos.

  3. 3

    Blend the tomatillos, chiles, garlic, onion and salt for 20 seconds. Do not add water yet — the tomatillos release plenty on their own.

  4. 4

    Add the cilantro and pulse twice. Two pulses, not a blend: over-processed cilantro turns the salsa bitter and a dull army green.

  5. 5

    Add water a tablespoon at a time only if it is thicker than you want. Taste for salt, and add the lime only if the tomatillos were mild.

  6. 6

    Let it stand 10 minutes before serving. Raw salsa needs a few minutes for the salt to pull everything together.

Good with

Carnitas and fatty tacos · Chips · Grilled chicken · Eggs

The five-minute salsa. Nothing gets cooked, nothing gets roasted, and it goes from a bag of tomatillos to a bowl on the table faster than you can heat a pan.

It is also sharper and more alive than any cooked version, which is exactly what you want next to something fatty.

Rinse the tomatillos properly

Under the papery husk there is a sticky, waxy film, and it is bitter.

Rub the tomatillos under running water with your hands until they squeak and stop feeling slippery. It takes half a minute for the whole batch.

This is the most common reason a homemade green salsa tastes subtly wrong in a way the cook cannot identify, and it applies to every tomatillo recipe on this site.

Cilantro last, two pulses

Cilantro contains volatile oils that are pleasant in short bursts and turn bitter and soapy when they are pulverized and oxidized.

Blend everything else first. Then add the cilantro and pulse twice — just enough to break it up and fold it through. The salsa should still show green flecks rather than being uniformly green.

Blend it in from the start and you get a duller color and a flatter, faintly bitter salsa. It is a small difference in effort and a large one in result.

Stems in

Cilantro stems carry more flavor than the leaves and they are not tough at the thin end. Use the top two thirds of the bunch, stems included, and discard only the thick woody bases.

Picking leaves off one by one is a waste of ten minutes that makes the salsa worse.

No water at the start

Tomatillos are mostly water and they release it the moment the blade hits them. Adding water at the beginning is how you end up with a thin salsa you cannot thicken.

Blend dry, then add water by the tablespoon at the end if it needs it. Most of the time it will not.

When to reach for this one

Raw green salsa is acidic and sharp, and its job is cutting through fat.

Carnitas, chicharrón, fried fish, anything rich. Also straightforwardly good with chips, where its brightness stands up better than a cooked salsa does.

For chilaquiles or enchiladas, use the cooked version — this one is too sharp and too thin to coat.

Keeping it

Three days refrigerated in a sealed jar, and it is best on the first. It separates as it sits; a stir puts it back together.

Do not freeze it.

Common questions

Raw or cooked — which should I make?

Raw is sharper, brighter and more acidic; it cuts through fat, which makes it the right salsa next to carnitas, chicharrón or anything fried. Cooked is rounder and sweeter and works better spooned over food — chilaquiles, enchiladas, anything it needs to blend into. Raw keeps three days, cooked keeps a week.

Why does mine taste bitter?

Two usual causes. You did not rinse the tomatillos enough — the sticky residue under the husk is genuinely bitter. Or you blended the cilantro instead of pulsing it. Cilantro goes in last and gets two pulses, no more.

Can I use canned tomatillos?

Not for this one. Canned tomatillos are already cooked and packed in brine, so a raw salsa made with them is neither raw nor fresh — make the cooked version instead. Fresh tomatillos are stocked year round in most US supermarkets now, usually near the jalapeños.

How do I pick tomatillos?

The husk should be tight, dry and pale brown, and the fruit inside firm and filling it. A loose, shrunken husk means the fruit has dried out. Green is what you want — yellowing tomatillos have ripened past the point where they are tart, and this salsa needs the tartness.

Can I freeze it?

No. Raw tomatillo separates on thawing and the fresh flavor is the entire point. Make it in the amount you will eat in a couple of days.