Green Enchilada Sauce

When you love enchiladas and love to cook even more, making your own enchilada sauce at home is a must. Making sauce on a rainy day allows you to hunker down inside and make it in bulk without rushing the process. You can then freeze it in ziplock bags for future use. With a Mexican sauce, green enchilada sauce is a personal favorite. The slightly tart flavor profile of a tomatillo-based sauce keeps me wanting more. If you’re not into cilantro and tomatillos, try making my red sauce instead.

For green enchilada sauce, all you really have to do is roast everything, break it all down in a food processor (or blender), then strain the heck out of it. It’s almost as if you’re making my Salsa Verde with Roasted Poblano Pepper, except for salsa verde you might leave some ingredients raw. But here you want everything cooked, so you can extract the essence of all of these ingredients to yield a concentrated sauce.

Using Mexican oregano contributes to a more authentic flavor to enchilada sauce, but don’t add too much.

Take notice of the absence of garlic. If you’re like me, adding garlic to most things as a default ingredient comes naturally. However, this is one exception. When cooking various tomatillo-based green sauces over the years, it never really tasted right and one I finally realized that garlic was the problem. Tomatillos are actually related to gooseberries. So I thought to myself, “Would garlic and berries usually be a good combination? Um, no.” Also, the presence of a little sugar is needed in a green enchilada sauce to balance out the natural tartness of tomatillos. There’s no need to go sugar crazy and make it candy-like, so I only recommend a tablespoon at most.

To get that “takeout food feeling” make enchiladas in delivery food containers.

Key ingredients for Green enchilada sauce. Clockwise from upper left: Serrano peppers, lime juice, roasted Poblano peppers, Mexican oregano, cilantro, white onions, and tomatillos.

Ingredients

15 tomatillos, husks removed and cored
2 large white onions, halved and peeled
olive oil for roasting
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus extra for roasting
3 serrano peppers
3 poblano peppers
1 tablespoons ground Mexican Oregano
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 bunch cilantro leaves, stems removed
juice of one lime

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Cut all the tomatillos into equal-sizes. Small ones into halves, large ones into quarters.
Cut the white onions into sizes matching the cut tomatillos. Toss these together in a large bowl. Add just enough olive oil to coat everything equally.
Transfer oiled ingredients into a shallow, foil-lined 13 x 9 inch pan. Sprinkle tomatillos and onions with a few pinches of kosher salt. Roast this until tomatillos are tender and slightly browned, about 45 minutes. It will be really soupy and you want ALL of this juicy goodness!
Meanwhile, cook the poblano and serrano peppers over a direct open flame on the stovetop. Once the skins are charred on all sides, remove from heat and peel the skins off. Remove the core, inner ribs, and if you want some heat feel free keep as many seeds as you see fit. If you don’t have a gas stove, simply roast them in the oven. Or, better yet – use a grill!
In a food processor, combine the cooked tomatillo mixture, poblanos, Mexican oregano, sugar, 1 tablespoon of kosher salt, vinegar, cilantro and lime juice. Process on high until all ingredients are broken down as much as possible.
Place a fine mesh strainer placed over a medium bowl. In 2-cup batches, pour the processed mixture into the strainer. Gently stir the ingredients around, extracting as much juice as possible.
From here on out, the mission is to extract as much juice from the pulp in as many creative ways as possible. Being pressed with a rubber spatula, or a firm ladle works really well. Or try using a cheesecloth.
Upon making an enchilada to order, you can further adjust seasonings to your liking when you’re reheating the sauce. For me, 1 cup of green enchilada sauce was enough for a serving of 3 enchiladas. And I do like mine quite saucy, but not necessarily soupy.

Yield: About 5 cups.

Green Enchilada Sauce