Friendship Inspired Salsa Verde

Gather your Sauce Girls for a new addition to your steaks, tacos, fish & beyond 🫶🏽

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May 22, 2025

Welcome back to another weekly food story! We’re unlocking a new character this week: our cute, floral-arranging, yoga-instructing, junk-journaling friend, Jess.

Jess sippin’ the best matcha in town at our first visit to Spud’s in November ‘22

I, Julia, met Jess in college in New York where we studied Hispanic Languages and Literatures together. I often start our friendship origin story by telling people how at first I didn’t even like her (not entirelyyyy true, but adds a good, dramatic storytelling effect). I had long been the only gringa in my classes who was good enough at Spanish that my professors and classmates asked me if I grew up with the language… until the first class I had with Jess. I mistakenly assumed she too was raised in a monolingual household (don’t judge a book by its pale, winter skin!). We quickly got to know a little more about each other and I learned she grew up bilingual - speaking mainly Spanish at home as the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants and English at school as the main language of instruction. In the span of two classes, she went from my identity-threatening nemesis to my badass bilingual best friend.

During the time that Megan and I started working together and becoming closer as friends, Jess was working towards her yoga teacher certification. Megan needed to get back into practice as a student and Jess needed to practice as a teacher… so I set them up. All of this eventually led to a cute, cozy girls’ night in where we finally celebrated our friendship over a home-cooked meal. Julia took care of the app and made a salad with a caramelized shallot sherry vinaigrette, Megan was in charge of the entree and made Jamaican rice & peas with a seared snapper, and Jess (who typically prefers dish duty) also put together a Salvadoran salsa verde.

I’ve watched her prepare this sauce over and over and over again and it’s never exactly the same but it’s never anything other than perfectly delicious. It makes sense that it differs - the recipe comes from years of tasting her mom’s version and trying to perfect ratios via FaceTime calls once Jess moved away from home. Jess, a Virgo who hates cooking, had a hard time with instructions that lacked measurements and explicit steps at first, but has since mastered the process (though I doubt she would wholeheartedly agree - that damn Virgo perfectionism).

Chef thought it was so good that she went and prepared a whole Supper Club menu around our girls’ nights. And what did this week’s group lick off their plate so not to miss a single drip of? What ran out before I even got a taste??? The intergenerational, FaceTime-taught, friendship-inspired Salvadoran salsa verde.

Another fan fave from this Supper Club was the scallop crudo. It was so loved that our guests asked for the recipe on their way out for the night AND our friends, fam, & fans who couldn’t be there have been blowing up our texts and DMs asking for it. So naturally, we’ll save that one for the cookbook 😏

Salsa Verde

Since Supper Clubs have resumed, we’ve been using our subsequent content days to avoid waste and make a new dish with the leftover ingredients. This time, the original menu was so good that we didn’t stray too much into an entirely new creation.

Since the recipe is friendship-inspired, it differs a little from the purely verbal recipe that originated with Jess’s mom (or earlier, honestly). Put your spin on it how you like, too!

Ingredients:

1 avocado (save the pit to store in leftover salsa - a little Salvadoran trick to help it stay greener longer)
1/4 cup cilantro
1/2 jalepeño, no seeds (seeds add spice, choose your own adventure here)
2 cloves garlic (Julia prefers to use like 3,000)
1/4 white onion (Jess tends to use red onion)
2 stalks green onion (a Megan original addition - more green stuff!)
juice of 1 lemon or lime (Megan went lemon, J+J go lime)
Pinch of salt to taste
Splash of water to thin as desired

Gather all your ingredients, chuck them in the blender or food processor, and mix until smooth! Taste it after blending to play with more spice, more salt, or more water to thin it out a bit (or forget the water and keep that sauce thiiiick!). Use as a bed for crispy fish, drizzle atop steak slices, dollop on tacos of any kind, or add alongside breakfast - it goes so well with anything! Store in an airtight container with the avocado pit to maximize freshness. It probably lasts 5-7 days in the fridge, but we always finish it long before that!

Monday Steaks with Salsa Verde, Cucumber-Apple Salad, & Fresh Fried Chips

Send to a friend you want to eat this with 😋

Next Supper Club is Saturday June 14th!

That’s right, our next date is already live! Join Megan, Julia, & Jess for our first themed evening: Italian Summer Sunset. 🫒🍝🍊🦪🍷 Only at Spud’s Coffee in Fort Lauderdale, of course! Here’s some scenes from the mood board to guide your attire & vibe: