Irene’s Salsa Verde
Irene’s Salsa Verde
Las Cruces, New Mexico circa 2018
A fire-roasted, blended, and cooked salsa reconstructed from memory
Quick Info
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 20 min
Total Time: 35 min
Difficulty: Easy
Yield: ~3 cups
Ingredients
3 Garlic bulbs
20 Serrano Peppers
20 Jalapeno Peppers
White Onion
10 Tomatio
5 Habenero
1 Cilantro bunch
START HERE
ROAST: Flavor Base
Everything starts with roasting:
Tomatillos soften and sweeten
Peppers develop char and depth
Garlic turns mellow and nutty
This removes raw sharpness and builds complexity.
Why It Works
Acid → tomatillos
Heat → chilies
Freshness → cilantro
Depth → roasting + cooking
Balanced, layered, and clean.
PREP & CHOP:
Peel garlic
Remove pepper stems
Rough chop everything
BLEND
Add to blender:
Roasted ingredients
Cilantro
Salt
Blend until slightly textured (not fully smooth).
COOK
Pour salsa into a pot and simmer:
5–10 minutes
It will foam, then settle
This step deepens flavor and reduces raw acidity.
Add salt as needed
Adjust with water or acid if needed
This recipe comes from a friend’s mom, Irene. I didn’t have the written recipe—just a series of photos and a memory of how it tasted.
So this became something different: not just cooking, but reverse engineering. Looking at each step—what was roasted, what was blended, what was cooked—and rebuilding it like a chef would rebuild a dish from flavor and technique.
What came out of it wasn’t just a salsa. It was a process: fire, breakdown, transformation.
This style of salsa is rooted in Mexican tatemado cooking, where ingredients are charred over direct heat to build flavor.
Cooking the salsa after blending is also common—it creates a more stable, richer sauce that holds up well with meals.
