Green chile enchilada sauce is roasted green chile, stock, aromatics and a little flour. It is not salsa verde. Salsa verde is tomatillos, and most recipes you will find under this name are tomatillo sauce wearing a New Mexican label.
That is the whole difference and it matters more than any technique on this page. If you came here because a recipe called for green chile enchilada sauce and what you found online was a blender full of tomatillos, cilantro and lime, you were not going crazy. You were looking at a different sauce from a different tradition.
This one takes about fifty minutes and makes 2 to 3 cups.
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Why this is not salsa verde
Both are green. That is where it ends.
Nothing is wrong with salsa verde. It is just not what goes on enchiladas in New Mexico, and substituting it gives you a dish that tastes tart and thin where it should taste roasted and round.
The state's own published green chile sauce, on the New Mexico True recipe page, is chile, onion, garlic, a tablespoon of flour, stock and salt. No tomatillos anywhere. That is the shape of the thing.
The recipe
Green Chile Enchilada Sauce
- Yield2 to 3 cups
- Prep10 minutes
- Cook40 minutes
- HeatYour choice
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
- 1 to 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 cup flame roasted Hatch green chile, Medium or Hot
- 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 medium jalapeño, finely diced, optional
Method
- Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cover. Cook 5 to 6 minutes, stirring once or twice so nothing sticks, until the onion is soft but not browned.
- Stir in the flour and cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly. It will clump around the onion. Keep stirring until it smells toasted and turns pale gold. This step is what separates a sauce from chile in broth, and rushing it leaves a raw flour taste that no amount of simmering removes.
- Add the broth gradually, whisking constantly to work out the lumps.
- Add everything else. Bring to a boil, drop to low, and simmer 30 minutes, stirring now and then. It is ready when it coats a spoon but still drips off.
- Salt to taste. Blend it if you want it smooth. Leave it as is if you want to see the chile, which most people here do.
On the chile ratio. This recipe runs about one part chile to one and a half parts broth, which makes a sauce you can pour freely. Plenty of New Mexican cooks go heavier, closer to equal parts, which is what the state's version does. If you want it to taste more like chile and less like sauce, take it to 1 1/2 cups chile and hold the broth at 1 1/2 cups. It will be thicker and you will use less of it.
How much sauce you actually need
This is the question the recipe does not answer and neither does anyone else's, which is strange, because it is the only thing standing between you and a pan of dry enchiladas.
Two rules of thumb behind that table. Sauce a pan more generously than feels right, because tortillas drink it as they bake and a pan that looked wet going in comes out dry. And hold back half a cup to pour over the top at the table.
One 16 oz jar of chile is roughly what a single batch calls for, give or take, so a jar and a pan of enchiladas line up about right.
Controlling the heat
The heat comes from the chile, so control it there rather than at the end.
- Medium chile makes a sauce most people can eat a plateful of. This is the safe choice when you are feeding people you do not know well.
- Hot chile makes a sauce that announces itself. Still eatable by the plate, but nobody will mistake it for mild.
- Mixing is how you land between them. Half a jar of each is more controllable than trying to tame a hot sauce after the fact.
- The jalapeño is optional and it changes the character, not just the level. It brings a brighter, sharper heat that sits on top of the roasted flavor rather than inside it. Leave it out the first time.
If it comes out hotter than you wanted, dairy is the fix. Stir in a couple of tablespoons of sour cream or a handful of cheese off the heat. Adding water thins the flavor without touching the heat much, which is the mistake people usually make.
Make ahead, storing and freezing
Refrigerator: 3 to 4 days. That is USDA guidance for cooked leftovers, and New Mexico's own published green chile sauce says three days. Cool it and get it covered and cold within two hours.
Freezer: several months. It freezes cleanly because there is no dairy in it. Freeze it flat in a bag and it stacks and thaws fast. One useful trick is to freeze it in half cup portions, which is one burrito or one plate of eggs, so you are not thawing three cups to sauce one thing.
One thing worth knowing: freezing does not reset the clock. If the sauce sat in the refrigerator two days before it went into the freezer, it has one or two days left after it thaws, not another four.
It thickens in the cold and loosens on reheat. Do not judge the consistency straight out of the fridge. Warm it gently and add a splash of broth if it needs it.
Making it ahead is not a compromise here. A day in the refrigerator rounds the flavor out.
Fixing a sauce that went wrong
It tastes like raw flour
Step 2 was too short. The flour needs 2 to 3 full minutes in the fat before any liquid goes in. There is no rescue once the liquid is in, so next time give it the time. Simmering longer will not fix it.
It is lumpy
The broth went in too fast. Whisk hard, and if that fails, run it through a blender. Nobody will know.
It is too thin
Simmer it longer uncovered. If you are in a hurry, whisk a teaspoon of flour into a little cold broth and stir that in, then cook it a few more minutes.
It is too thick
Broth, a splash at a time. Not water, which dilutes the seasoning along with the texture.
It tastes flat
Salt first, and then more chile. Flat green chile sauce is nearly always underchiled rather than underseasoned. That is what happens when a recipe is written around a 4 oz can.
The shortcut, and when to take it
Here is the honest version: if you have good roasted chile and forty minutes, make the sauce. It is better than anything in a can, and the technique is one roux and a simmer.
And if you are in New Mexico in September, buy a sack, have it roasted and put it up yourself. For a lot of families that weekend is the point rather than the chore, and a freezer you filled yourself carries you clear through the winter.
The rest of the year, and everywhere that is not here, that is not an option. There is no roaster down the road in February in Tacoma. That is the gap we exist to fill:
- 16 oz jars of flame roasted Hatch green chile in Medium or Hot, shelf stable, four ingredients: Hatch chile, salt, garlic, lime juice. A jar is about one batch of this sauce.
- Frozen Hatch green chile in 10 or 20 lb orders if you want a freezer that lasts the year. It ships UPS air in two days or less, and if it arrives warm to the touch we refund the entire order plus shipping, no questions asked.
- The red and green blend if you want Christmas without keeping two jars open.
- In New Mexico, the store locator has who carries us.
- Restaurants working out plate cost should start at the wholesale page.
What to do with the sauce once you have it: the obvious answer is enchiladas, but it is better than that on eggs in the morning, and it belongs in rolled tacos alongside its red counterpart. If you have chile to get through rather than sauce to stretch, green chile stew is the heavier lift: three cups of chile for a pot that serves eight, against one cup here. If you want the other half of the pair, our New Mexico red chile sauce is built the same way from the other pod. Green chile beer queso uses a jar faster than anything else we publish, and the full recipe archive is free.
Common questions
Is green chile enchilada sauce the same as salsa verde?
No. Green chile enchilada sauce is built on roasted green chile with stock and a little flour. Salsa verde is built on tomatillos and is usually bright and tart. Swapping one for the other changes the dish completely.
How much green chile enchilada sauce do I need for a pan of enchiladas?
About 3 cups for a 9x13 pan of 12 rolled enchiladas, which is one full batch of this recipe. Roughly 1/4 cup per enchilada. Sauce it more generously than looks necessary, because the tortillas absorb it as it bakes.
How long does homemade green chile enchilada sauce last in the fridge?
Three to four days, per USDA guidance for cooked leftovers, and it should be covered and refrigerated within two hours of cooking. Freeze it for anything longer.
Can you freeze green chile enchilada sauce?
Yes, and it freezes well because there is no dairy in it. Freeze flat in a bag, or in half cup portions so you can thaw exactly what one dish needs. Freezing does not reset the refrigerator clock, so freeze it while it is still fresh.
Can I use canned green chile instead?
You can, and the sauce will be thinner and milder, because a 4 oz can is a small amount of chile that has usually been diced fine and packed in liquid. If you use cans, use more of them than the recipe implies and expect to add salt.
How do I make it hotter or milder?
Change the chile, not the seasoning. Hot chile for a hotter sauce, Medium for a milder one, or mix the two to land in between. To cool a finished sauce, stir in sour cream or cheese off the heat rather than adding water.
Why does my sauce taste like flour?
The flour did not cook long enough before the liquid went in. Give it a full 2 to 3 minutes in the fat until it smells toasted. Once the broth is in, more simmering will not remove the taste.
Do I need to blend it?
Only if you want it smooth. Left unblended you can see the chile in the sauce, which is how most people here prefer it.
The short version
Roasted green chile, stock, onion, garlic, a spoonful of cooked flour. No tomatillos. Forty minutes, 2 to 3 cups, which sauces one 9x13 pan of enchiladas. Three to four days in the refrigerator, months in the freezer.
If you have a freezer full of chile you roasted yourself, you are set. If you do not, a jar is about a batch.