Ultimate Green Taco Sauce Recipe ~ Macheesmo

If you’ve ever had really good tacos from a taco truck or even a good restaurant, you know that a bottle or bowl of bright green sauce for your tacos means you’ve come to the right place. This green taco sauce is usually similar to a salsa, but it also differs in a few key ways.

There are as many ways to make this sauce as there are taco restaurants in the world, but here’s my humble version of the sauce that I often make when I have a homemade taco night. I’ve also listed a few substitutions and ideas for making the sauce your own.

Let’s dive in and make a great green taco sauce!

Is taco sauce different than salsa?

Technically not really. Salsa basically just means sauce, so any sauce could be called salsa.

However, I find salsas to be a bit chunkier and sauces like this a smoother texture.

The beauty of sauces like this is that you can really make them your own. If you like a chunkier texture, just don’t puree as hard or use a Molcajete to mash the ingredients and your sauce (or salsa) will be chunkier.

What ingredients go into this green taco sauce?

Here are the basics I use for this green taco sauce.

Tex-Mex connoisseurs might notice one ingredient missing from this list: tomatillos. Although I sometimes add some tomatillos to this sauce, they’re not always available year-round, so I made a base version of the sauce using readily available peppers.

Personally, when I use tomatillos, I think more of a salsa verde than a lighter taco sauce, since the tomatillos thicken the sauce more.

Here are the basic ingredients I use:

• Pepper! Lots of peppers! I used a mixture of jalapeno peppers, serrano peppers, and poblano peppers. I roast all of these peppers well before mixing them into the sauce.
• White Onion. You need some onion for this sauce.
• Garlic. Also throw some garlic cloves on your frying pan.
• Coriander. Mixing it with cilantro turns the sauce bright green and adds a nice flavor to the sauce.
• lime juice. This sauce is at its best when it’s light and citrusy, and that means lots of lime juice!
• Spices. I keep it simple with cumin, salt and pepper.
• Water. A little water is essential to thin this sauce, making it very smooth and thinning out the hot peppers a bit.

How do you roast peppers for this sauce?

The peppers, onion and garlic in this green sauce benefit greatly from frying. You can also do this on a grill if you have access to a grill. It’s much faster on a grill.

That day, however, I just tossed all the peppers, onions, and garlic into a sheet pan and drizzled with olive oil and a pinch of salt. They roasted at high heat – 500˚F for 25 minutes. Turn once halfway through to ensure even roasting.

When they’re done, the skin on the peppers will blister well and peel off easily. You should allow all ingredients to cool before blending until you can handle them.

If you have a grill, this will only take 5-10 minutes. Grill the peppers and onions over high, direct heat until bubbled throughout. Let them steam in a bowl for 10 minutes before peeling and continuing with the recipe.

Mix in the green taco sauce

There are a few ways to finish this green taco sauce. I personally use a high power blender. Place all the ingredients (peel, deseed and stem the peppers) in a blender with about a cup of water.

Blend until mixture is completely smooth.

If you don’t have a good blender, you can also use a food processor. It will work, but you may not get the mix quite as smooth.

If you want a more rustic salsa verde texture, you can puree the ingredients in a molcajete. I love this method, especially when I add roasted tomatillos. Check out my Molcajete guide if you want to try this method!

If you puree the sauce, be sure to taste it! It may need an extra pinch of salt or another squeeze of lime. It should be quite spicy and salty. As a condiment, you don’t need much to add great flavor to your tacos.

Which tacos for this sauce?

Once you’ve made this sauce, you can drizzle it on almost anything in the Tex-Mex world. It pairs especially well with tacos like these Grilled Fish Tacos or something like these Flank Steak Fajita Bowls.

Once you’ve got it in the fridge you can even just drizzle it over some quick microwavable nachos for a late night snack or for breakfast, it’s really good for easy eggs or scrambled eggs!

At the end of the day, this green sauce can turn most tacos into great tacos and also makes a great drizzle on any enchilada or burrito!

Substitutes and ideas for this sauce

There are some common and wonderful substitutions and ideas for altering this sauce.

• tomatillos! If you have access to good quality tomatillos, add 4-5 to the sheet pan along with the peppers and toast them. Mix them up and you get a more traditional salsa verde.
• Avocado. To turn this into a guacamole sauce, add a ripe avocado to the blender while you blend the ingredients.
• Turn down the heat in this sauce by subtly adding an extra poblano or roasted pepper to the serrano peppers.
• Add additional spices like chili powder or paprika to this sauce.

Storage Instructions

This sauce is perfectly storable. That’s one reason I don’t like adding avocado to mine as it can turn brown. With just the paprika, salt and garlic, the sauce will keep in the fridge for a good two weeks. You can also freeze it for longer storage, but I can usually go through a batch in a few weeks without too much trouble!

My Ultimate Green Taco Sauce Recipe

Here are a few other great recipes to try!