Name: Creamy Poblano Sauce
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 35 min
Ingredients: 4 large poblano peppers (about 2.5oz each); 1 cup Mexican crema (or sour cream, crème fraîche, or Greek yogurt); 6 sprigs cilantro (optional); 1 garlic clove (or more, to taste); salt (to taste)

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This Poblano Sauce is creamy, bright, slightly smoky, and perfect for serving with corn chips, over tacos, or even for pasta! The perfect Mexican salsa to add an extra punch of flavor and creaminess to any dish.

Creamy poblano sauce in a bowl with tortilla chips and beer on the side.

Creamy poblano sauce is made of roasted poblano peppers, cream, garlic, salt, and cilantro. It has a herbaceous and slightly sour taste with a hint of freshness.

You can use this sauce pretty much for anything, as a base for Enchiladas Swizas, pasta, drizzled on tacos, to make chicken poblano, or just to enjoy with your favorite chips.

Because, even if it’s creamy, it still has a lot of texture because you can control how long to blend it. If you want it to add on soups or make enchiladas, blend to a velvety texture.

But if you’d like to serve at a party along with chips or raw vegetables, blend less to achieve a slightly chunky texture.

Close-up of poblano sauce. — Look at that creaminess and texture of the poblano salsa!

Why You Should Make It

FLAVORFUL. I just love the herbaceous and earthy taste of chiles poblanos, it is a classic taste that you can recognize easily because no other pepper tastes as good as this one.
PERFECT FOR MEAL PREP. This salsa stores nicely and can be used for so many things, add it to your crispy fried chicken, to a bowl of salad, or drizzle over your favorite taco recipe. It is so perfect to keep on hand for those busy days.
EASY TO MAKE. It only uses 5 ingredients and one is optional! Not need special cooking skills, just roast, throw in a blender and you’re done!
VERSATILE. With a few simple tweaks, you can also enjoy this sauce with a spicy kick, or add a citrus flavor with lime juice.

Ingredients

Poblano peppers: Best is to use fresh poblano peppers, but since they’re hard to find outside Mexico, you can substitute with canned roasted poblanos that are easily available at Mexican online food stores or on Amazon. Poblanos have an earthy, herbaceous flavor with some spicy kick.
Mexican crema: Crema Mexicana (as it’s known in some places) gives a particular touch to this recipe, but you can also replace it with sour cream, crème fraîche, or Greek yogurt which are easily available at many grocery stores.
Garlic: I used only a small clove for a hint of flavor. You can add more garlic cloves if you prefer.
Cilantro: This is an optional ingredient, I like to use it for flavor and color but you can totally leave it out and enjoy poblano peppers’ full flavor.
Salt: any type of salt you prefer.

How To Make Creamy Poblano Sauce

Wash poblano peppers thoroughly under running cold water then dry them with paper towels or a clean kitchen towel.

Place on a baking tray and roast under the broil until the skin of the peppers is wrinkled and charred on all sides (read note 1).

Roasted poblano peppers on a baking tray.

Place the peppers in a container, cover them, and leave them to “sweat” for 15 minutes, this will allow the skin to separate easily from the pepper.

Peel off the skin and discard the stem, seeds, and membranes. Add them to a blender along with cream, cilantro (optional), garlic, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Ingredients for creamy poblano sauce in a food processor.

Blend until nicely smooth. The longer you blend, the smoother will be. I like mine with a bit of texture so I blend only for a few seconds.

Adjust salt to taste and transfer the sauce to a bowl and serve, or place it in a glass container and store it for later.

Notes & Tips

You can also roast the peppers on the open flame of your stovetop, use kitchen tongs to turn them constantly so they don’t burn.
You can make this poblano sauce thinner by adding a little bit of water or milk, I prefer water so it doesn’t taste too “dairy”.
Poblano peppers are somehow unpredictable regarding spiciness, some can be spicier than others, to reduce their spiciness we recommend removing seeds AND membranes. You can also add a little bit more cream to tone down the spicy.
On the other hand, if you want to add more spiciness, we recommend to roast also 1 or 2 jalapeño peppers and add them to the sauce. Read more about Poblano vs. Jalapeno to know the difference between those two.

How To Serve

I like to keep a jar of this creamy poblano sauce in my fridge to use throughout the week. A few spoonfuls can add a burst of flavor to many foods!

Some of my favorite ways to use this creamy sauce include…

As an appetizer with potato chips or totopos (crispy tortilla chips).
For drizzling on pescadillas tacos, but it goes perfectly with pretty much any taco recipe!
As a dipping sauce for raw, roasted, or grilled vegetables.
For salads, it adds an amazing creamy kick to this Mexican cabbage salad or to any taco bowl.
Spreading over grilled steak or dipping fried chicken.
Serving with fried quesadillas or quesadillas de flor de calabaza. Yum!
Tossing with pasta, it is the perfect shortcut for this Mexican Green Spaghetti recipe.

Scooping up poblano sauce with a tortilla chip.

How To Store

Place leftovers in an airtight container and store in the fridge for up to 4 days. Jars are best for storing this salsa, as glass preserves the best flavors and aroma.

You can freeze this creamy roasted poblano sauce for up to 3 months too. Many people don’t think they can freeze cream-based sauces because they will lose their texture when defrosted, but truth is, you can do it!

Check out here how to freeze cream sauces and use them for your fav meal preparations.

More Sauces To Try

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