Chips and salsa are a staple of summer barbecues and potlucks. Usually store-bought and shunted to the end of the buffet, they’re more filler than anything else, the obvious ringers in a spread of homemade dishes.
It doesn’t have to be this way, people! Making your own salsa (and guacamole, for that matter) is easy and fun, and the taste is incomparable to anything you can get in a jar. If you can start a charcoal grill and use an immersion blender, you can whip up your own fire-roasted salsa that will have your guests clamoring for more.
Firing up a grill is really not as time consuming as you might think, and the smoky flavor of mesquite charcoal is hard to beat. From heating up the grill to blending the salsa, this recipe took me an hour to make. It yielded a big batch — five cups worth — but salsa freezes beautifully and you’ll be glad you made extra for later!
Fire Roasted Salsa Verde
makes 5 cups
2 lbs. tomatillos, husks removed
4 large poblano peppers
1 serrano pepper
1 large sweet yellow onion, peeled and halved
1 C. cilantro leaves
juice of 3 limes
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1. Prepare your grill.
2. Grill the tomatillos, peppers, and onion until well charred all over. Turn a few times during cooking for even charring.
3. Remove veggies to a large bowl, and let them cool until you can handle them safely.
4. De-seed the peppers and scrape off most of their skin. You don’t have to do a perfect job here — a little blackened skin in your salsa is more than alright.
5. Combine the grilled vegetables, cilantro, lime juice, and salt in a large bowl. Using an immersion blender, process until cilantro is finely chopped and salsa is as smooth as you like.
We’ve got tomatillos growing like crazy so this will be perfect! Can you advise a substitute for the pasilla peppers? Thank you!
Well, I did a little research, and it turns out that the name “pasilla” is correctly attributed to a dried chilaca pepper. What I bought were mislabeled poblano peppers! Poblanos are often referred to as pasilla peppers in the United States, but now that I know better I will edit this post to reflect my new-found info.
Incidentally, if you’ve got poblanos around, use ‘em =). If not, anaheim chiles, or even some green bell peppers would work.
I have wanted a recipe for green salsa, cuz it’s my favorite and I love roasted salsas. Tomatillos, well, i just never knew what to do with them. this is great! thank you and so perfect for summer.
Perfect recipe for the holiday weekend! Looking forward to giving it a try.
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