Cilantro salsa verde

A perfect way to dress slow-roasted salmon and baby potatoes

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Now that it’s spring—a very cold and rainy and wintery feeling spring, but spring no less—I’ve noticed a subtle shift in meal ideas that spring to mind (ha!). Something popping up more and more is green sauce. In 2023 I regularly had a homemade green sauce on hand at all times (or so I optimistically remember). I played around with salsa verde and zhoug and chimichurri, and this year, Julius Roberts turned me on to Portuguese-style Coriander sauce (not sure if it has a formal name), thanks to this incredible chicken stew. We also had a CSA through the summer months and into fall, and this is what I did with many of our leafy herbs, experimenting with different ingredients and ratios. I found that these sauces are wildly all-purpose. I put them on everything. 2024 is a blur so who knows what I even cooked, but I do know that I didn’t make a single green sauce. I know because I palpably missed them, and the practice of making them/having them around all season-long.

Cilantro Salsa Verde, a la Tycho & me (this small heart-shaped pyrex, and silver “A” teaspoon make me happier than I can say)

I made a cilantro-based salsa verde last night and decided there and then that 2025 would see the return of green sauce into my life. What I’m offering is more of a non-recipe recipe because I threw this together pretty haphazardly, with Tycho manning the food processor (supervised, of course—paid subscribers, scroll down for a bonus photo of that, lol, as well as instructions for the salsa verde and salmon dish—thank you for your support).

A perfect meal, served on Adams Calyx “Allegro” dishes procured from Ebay ;) (another obsession)

Once the salsa verde was made I put on a pot of heavily salted water for baby Yukon Gold potatoes, turned the oven to 300 and seasoned two 1 pound filets of salmon in lots of olive oil (maybe a cup), some kosher salt, and sliced yellow onion. I would have opted for red onion—mostly for the color but also the slightly spicy taste—had I had some. Once the potatoes were boiling away I slow-roasted the salmon for 20 minutes—it came out perfectly cooked. I debated calling the sauce a zhoug vs. a salsa verde, but am opting for the latter given the inclusion of capers and the lack of spices. It’s ultra simple. Salsa Verde typically calls for parsley, but they were sold out at the store. In summer, when I have a lot of leafy herbs, I use a combination of whatever is on hand, anyway. So who cares? That said, I think I’ll get a bit more intentional about it, for the sake of experimentation, but also to honor where these sauces come from and the ingredients they are intended with. Expect more little green sauces to come.