Creamy Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

You’ve probably seen about a hundred tomatillo salsa recipes… Some are fresh and diced, some are pureed, some roasted. At first, it might be hard to know which one to choose. In case you haven’t worked much with tomatillos I’ll start by saying that I find them to be very little like a tomato. I figured tomato… tomatillo… just a green tomato, right? Nope. They come with a green husk that conveniently protects your hands from a sticky residue on the tomatillo itself. You gotta scrub that off.  On the inside, you’ll find it relatively slime-seed free. It’s more fruit like.  And thankfully it takes well to roasting because it’s fairly tart raw.

So here’s yet another salsa recipe for you to bookmark, print, pin or share–but most importantly, to cook.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound tomatillos
• 1 white onion
• 1 large jalapeño
• 1/3 bunch cilantro
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• couple tablespoons of avocado oil

Prep:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and prep the veggies.

Peel the husk off the tomatillos, scrub off the sticky residue and slice in half. Set in your roasting pan of choice.  With the onion, just peel and quarter it. I roast the jalapeño whole.  All of this is going in a food processor anyways, so for this stage concern yourself more with equal roasting times.

When the veggies are loaded in the roasting pan, with plenty of room to breathe between them, drizzle a couple tablespoons of avocado oil over everything.  Sprinkle a half teaspoon of kosher salt and garlic powder too.  Pop in the oven and roast for about 40-45 minutes.

Meanwhile, grill up some steak and try not overcook it like I did tonight… whoops. Rookie mistake!

Break out your food processor and add about a third to a half bunch of cilantro.  Portion out a quarter cup of coconut milk for later.

When the tomatillos, onion and jalapeño are roasted, make sure that you spoon up all the juices left in the pan. Those definitely need to get into the sauce!  Grab all the goodies and load it into the food processor along with that last half teaspoon of kosher salt.  Oh yeah, be sure to remove the stem from the jalapeño if you haven’t already.

No extra liquid is necessary as far as viscosity is concerned, however, I add the coconut milk to get that creamy element. I like it against the tart roasted tomatillo and the spicy jalapeño. Process until you get a consistency you like. I go for smooth over chunky in this case.

This yields just under two cups of sauce and goes fantastic with red meat.  It would easily dominate poultry, so I’d steer you away from that direction.  Though, ironically, I can see this being quite tasty with eggs…