Description
A fresh tasting, spicy sauce that is great for dipping tortilla chips into, or drizzling onto your favorite Mexican dishes, or so many other recipes. Jalapeno sauce is super easy to make and bursting with flavor.
Ingredients
- 2 to 3 jalapenos
- 2 poblano peppers
- 2 to 3 garlic cloves
- 1/2 cup cilantro, tender stems included
- Juice of 1 lime
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- optional: 1/2 to 1 teaspoon agave nectar
- 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon avocado oil (See notes)
An option for dipping:
- tortilla chips (see notes for more options for serving this sauce)
Instructions
- Prepare the ingredients: Slice the stem end of you jalapenos off discard, slice the jalapenos in half. At this point you can remove all, or some of the seeds and membrane from the jalapenos, or keep them in. This is where the spice lives. Since jalapenos can vary quite a bit in how spicy they are here is my suggestion: remove the seeds and membrane, but reserve them. Proceed with making the sauce, taste, and add the seeds and membrane into the sauce to increase the heat, as you like it. This way you don’t end up with a super spicy sauce if you don’t want it. At this time, also remove the stem end, and slice the poblanos in half, removing their seeds, discard the seeds. Peel the garlic cloves, you can leave them whole.
- Blend: Transfer all of the ingredients (except for the jalapeno seeds, if you want to wait to see how spicy your sauce is) to a blender. Blend on high, scraping down sides as needed. The sauce should be mostly smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed, or add those jalapeno seeds in to make the sauce more spicy. Also, at this time add the agave nectar if you need to round out the acidify of the lime juice a little – it’s not so much that it will make the sauce sweet.
- Optional Chill: You can use the jalapeno sauce immediately if you’re in a rush, but it is best if it’s chilled for at least 2 hours. This is especially nice when you are serving it as a dip with tortillas. It’s less important to chill the sauce if you are drizzling it over an entrée.
- Serve: There are so many ways you can use this jalapeno sauce. We really love it as a dip with tortilla chips for an appetizer, or a side dish. However, I know it would be delicious as a sauce drizzled on almost any Mexican dishes: tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas, burritos etc. I also think it would be good on eggs and chicken. There are so many possibilities! (See links to recipe ideas in the post above).
Notes
Variations: You can use all jalapenos and omit the poblano peppers, if you want. I would use about 3 or 4 more jalapenos in place of the poblano peppers. This will result in a spicier sauce, but again, you can adjust the spice level a little by not using all of the seeds, if you want. I have had this sauce made using all jalapenos, it was really good.
Avocado oil: You can use any neutral tasting oil here. The purpose of the oil is to create an emulsification to make the sauce creamy. However, I really like avocado oil because it’s a nice clean oil that I always have on hand for cooking.
Cilantro: if you aren’t a fan of cilantro, you can omit it from the recipe. However, it isn’t a super strong flavor in the sauce either.
Tips for using a low powered blender: Make sure to add the avocado oil and lime juice to the blender first. Then, add half of the ingredients to the blender at a time. You may have to stop the blender and use a spoon to push the peppers down a few times.
Leftovers: This sauce is best eaten within 4 days. However, it never lasts quite that long in our house lol!
This recipe was adapted from a recipe my cousin made for us on vacation. He said he had it at a Mexican, or Tex-Mex restaurant in Texas, where he is from.
