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Green Taco Sauce is the five minute blender sauce that makes taco night taste like your favorite taqueria, cool sour cream whipped with scallions, cilantro, garlic, and cumin, and once I started keeping a jar in the refrigerator on taco Tuesdays the bottled stuff never came back. It joins our homemade bbq sauce in the make it yourself hall of fame.
This is the creamy, sour cream style green sauce, cool and herby like a crema, not the thin jarred tomatillo kind, and it comes together in one blender cup.
Green Taco Sauce Quick Look
- 🕒 Prep Time: 5 minutes
- 🌡️ Cook Time: 0 minutes
- ⏳ Total Time: 5 minutes
- 🍽️ Serving: 6 servings
- ⚡ Calories: 41kcal
- 🌶️ Flavor Profile: Cool creamy herbs with garlic warmth and an earthy cumin backbone
- ✋ Difficulty: Easy, as dump and blend as our homemade onion soup mix
Quick Answer
Finely slice the green parts of three scallions and rough chop a quarter cup of loosely packed cilantro. Add them to a blender with a half cup of sour cream, one small minced garlic clove, a quarter teaspoon of ground cumin, and fresh ground pepper to taste, then blend until completely smooth and pale green. Taste, adjust the seasoning, and serve right away or chill it for a thicker, more scoopable texture.
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Why This Recipe Works
Click to see the technique science
- Sour cream is the creamy backbone. It gives the sauce body and a cool tang that balances spicy taco fillings, this is a crema style green sauce, richer than any thin bottled kind.
- Green tops only, on purpose. The green parts of the scallions bring mild oniony freshness and all of the color without the sharp bite the white ends would add to a raw sauce.
- Cilantro stems are welcome here. The blender pulverizes everything, and the stems carry as much flavor as the leaves, so a rough chop of the whole quarter cup works perfectly.
- One garlic clove is the right amount. Raw garlic gets stronger as the sauce sits, a single small clove seasons the whole batch without taking it over by day two.
- Cumin is the taco signal. A quarter teaspoon of earthy cumin is what moves this from herb dip territory to genuine taco sauce.
- The blender does the emulsifying. A full minute of blending shears the herbs into the sour cream so the sauce turns a uniform pale green and pours like a dream over tacos.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Five minutes and one blender cup stand between you and a jar of the good stuff.
- It cools spicy fillings the way a crema should, kids drizzle it on everything.
- It doubles as a dip and a dressing, as flexible as our creamy garlic dressing.
Key Ingredients
Six refrigerator staples, one blender, zero cooking.
- Sour cream: The creamy tangy base, full fat blends the silkiest but light sour cream works too.
- Scallions: Green parts only for mild onion flavor and that signature pale green color.
- Cilantro: A quarter cup loosely packed, stems and all, it is the herby heart of the sauce.
- Garlic: One small clove, minced before it goes in so the blender distributes it evenly.
- Ground cumin: The warm earthy note that makes it taste like taco night instead of veggie dip.
See recipe card for exact quantities.
Variations and Substitutions
One blender base, a whole salsa bar of directions.
- Add a seeded jalapeno or a few pickled jalapeno slices for a spicy version.
- Squeeze in half a lime for a brighter, tangier sauce that leans crema.
- Swap the sour cream for greek yogurt for a lighter, protein packed take.
- Blend in half a ripe avocado for a thicker, richer avocado crema style sauce.
- Want a red option on the table too? Our marinara sauce tricks translate to any from scratch sauce project.
How to Make Green Taco Sauce
- Slice the green parts of the scallions finely and rough chop the cilantro, stems included.
- Add the scallions and cilantro to a blender with the sour cream, minced garlic, ground cumin, and fresh ground pepper.
- Blend until completely smooth and pale green, about a minute, scraping down once if needed. Taste, adjust the salt and pepper, and serve or chill.
Recipe Tips & Tricks
- Blend a full minute. Short pulses leave herb flecks, a long blend turns the whole sauce that beautiful uniform green.
- Make it a few hours ahead. The flavors marry in the refrigerator and the sauce thickens to a perfect drizzle consistency.
- Thin it with milk for squeeze bottles. A teaspoon at a time loosens it to taqueria squeeze consistency without dulling the flavor.
- Taste before adding salt. Sour cream brands vary in saltiness, season at the end, not the start.
- Use it within five days. The garlic keeps getting stronger, day two is the flavor peak.
- Double it for a crowd. The recipe scales straight up, and a pint disappears fast once people find the jar.
Serving Ideas and Suggestions
Drizzle it over street tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and taco salads, anywhere the bottle of red sauce used to go, this is the cool creamy counterpoint spicy fillings beg for.
It moonlights as a dip for tortilla chips and fresh veggies, park it next to a bowl of our pizza sauce breadsticks night and watch which bowl empties first.
Spoon it over grilled chicken, roasted potatoes, or scrambled eggs, a creamy green sauce this easy earns a permanent squeeze bottle in the refrigerator door, right beside the hot dog sauce.
Store it in an airtight jar in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, it thickens slightly and the flavor deepens overnight. Give it a stir before serving, and skip the freezer, sour cream sauces separate when thawed.
Green Taco Sauce FAQs
This creamy version blends sour cream with scallion greens, fresh cilantro, garlic, ground cumin, and black pepper. It is a cool crema style sauce, different from the thin jarred green taco sauces which are tomatillo and chili based, and the two play completely different roles on a taco.
No, salsa verde is a cooked or raw tomatillo salsa with chilies, while this green taco sauce is a creamy blended sour cream sauce. Salsa verde brings heat and acidity, this brings cooling creaminess, and honestly the best taco carries both.
This one is mild and cooling, the green comes from herbs, not chilies, which makes it the family friendly drizzle on the taco bar. Want heat? Blend in a seeded jalapeno or a spoonful of pickled jalapenos and it turns into a spicy crema in seconds.
Up to 5 days in an airtight jar in the refrigerator. The flavor actually peaks on day two once the garlic and herbs settle in. Do not freeze it, sour cream based sauces break and turn grainy when thawed.
Tacos first, obviously, but it earns its refrigerator space on burritos, quesadillas, nachos, taco salads, grilled chicken, roasted potatoes, and breakfast eggs. It also works straight up as a chip and veggie dip at parties.
Yes, swap the cilantro for flat leaf parsley with a squeeze of lime to make up the brightness. The sauce stays just as green and creamy, and the cilantro tastes like soap crowd gets to join taco night again.
Made this Green Taco Sauce? Leave a comment and a star rating below, and tell me what you drizzled it on first!
Green Taco Sauce
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 3 scallions green part only
- 1/4 cup cilantro loose packed
- 1 small clove garlic minced
- 1/4 tsp ground cumin
- fresh ground pepper to taste
Instructions
- Slice the green onions finely and rough chop the cilantro.
- Put this with the remaining ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.
Nutrition
Love This Recipe?
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My kiddos LOVE sour cream, so I bet they would devour this sauce. Thanks for linking up to Gingerly Made’s Show & Tell.