How to Make Enchilada Verde Sauce With Green Tomatoes

This canning recipe is such a great one for when your late summer garden keeps producing tomatoes. As the nights start to cool down and the tomatoes don’t turn to red before the frost, pick them still firm and green to make this enchilada verde sauce with green tomatoes for canning.

In the summer when the tomatoes are ripe and at their peak, we make our favorite zucchini salsa. And all the other canned goods such as tomato sauce, ketchup, tomato paste, and so much more.

But in the fall, we are usually at our max with what we can do with tomatoes. The plants are still producing, but the weather has started to cool down. So the tomatoes aren’t ripening up as quick.

This year my garden kept producing tomatoes well into the fall. We had so many green tomatoes near the end of the season that I ended up making all kinds of new recipes with them. This enchilada verde sauce with our green tomatoes was one of our favorites. It is a large recipe and really great for canning.

This recipe is really best made in late summer when you have all the ingredients ready in the garden or from a local farmers market. The produce is at its peak then and you will taste the difference in the final product of enchilada verde sauce.

How Much Does this Recipe Make?

This is a very large recipe that makes 8 or more quarts of sauce. It takes 30 pounds of green tomatoes. If you do not have that many tomatoes, you can easily half the recipe or even make a quarter of it.

When I make this sauce, I like to can it in a mix of quart and pint jars because that is how to consume it. So you can make it all as pints, quarts, or a mix of the both. You will process them for slightly different times in the water bath canner, however.

What Do I Need to Make this Sauce?

• 30 pounds of green tomatoes, halved
• 4-8 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 5-8 hot peppers of any variety (poblano/jalapeño/Anaheim) sliced in half or left whole
• 5 medium onions, sliced in large chunks
• 2 1/2 cups white vinegar
• 3 tablespoons sea salt or canning salt
• 1 tablespoon black pepper
• 2 1/2 tablespoons oregano
• 2 tablespoons cumin

I have made this recipe both with all green tomatoes and about 1/2 green tomatoes and 1/2 tomatillos. Both are great.

The amount and type of peppers is really up to your heat tolerance level. Our family does not like super spicy things, so we grow mild peppers. I used up what I had left to pick in my garden, which were mild jalapeños and Anaheim mostly.

You can choose to leave the seeds in the peppers and roast them whole or remove the seeds before roasting. I have done both depending on the heat of the peppers I use.

Step-by Step for Enchilada Verde Sauce

Turn on your oven to 425 degrees or you can also use broil watching carefully.

Since this is a big recipe, I get out all my sheet pans with sides and fill them up as full as I can. It usually takes two rounds in the oven for this recipe unless I only do a half recipe for enchilada verde sauce.

First, wash and cut off any blemishes on the green tomatoes and peppers.

Cut the tomatoes in half and place cut side up on a baking sheet. Cut so you have the largest surface area to roast like in the photos above.

Add the sliced onions, garlic and peppers to the tray. Load up the trays.

Roast in the oven until soft and brown. Depending on the tomatoes used, you might end up with a lot of liquid. Be careful removing from the oven if the trays are filled with liquid.

Remove trays of roasted veggies from the oven and allow to cool down.

Now you will work in batches to transfer the roasted tomato mix into large food processor or high powdered blender. Blend until it is a puree with no large chunks.

Dump each batch into a large heavy-bottomed stock pot. Continue until all the veggies are pureed and in the stock pot.

Add the remaining ingredients to the stockpot and bring to a boil over med-high heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally so it does not burn.

After the sauce is done cooking, carefully ladle the hot sauce into hot canning jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Follow canning best practices – wipe the rims clean, place lids and rings on and water bath can for 25 minutes for pints and 30 minutes for quarts.

How to Use Enchilada Verde Sauce

We are big fans of using a verde sauce instead of a red sauce for when we make enchiladas. So we mostly use this sauce up when we make enchiladas – usually cheese or chicken. This sauce is great mixed with cream cheese or sour cream when you make the enchiladas, but dairy does not have to be used.

Pin for Later – Enchilada Verde Sauce

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