Creamy Poblano Sauce (served hot)

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Served piping hot, this poblano sauce is an amazing addition to burritos, tacos, enchiladas or your favorite fish, chicken or beef dish.

poblano sauce in bowl with ingredients around it.

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What is a Poblano Cream Sauce?
Why you’ll love this Creamy Poblano Sauce
Ingredients for Creamy Poblano Sauce
How to make Creamy Poblano Sauce
Expert Tips
Substitutions and Variations
Storage
What to serve with Poblano Cream Sauce
Want more poblano recipes? Check out these:
Recipe Video
Recipe FAQs
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Sauces & Marinades

What is a Poblano Cream Sauce?

We do love all of the great cold salsas and sauces with our favorite Mexican and Tex-Mex style foods. In this case, though, we’ve created a sauce using a favorite pepper, the poblano, and it’s designed to be served hot.

Poblanos are readily available in most groceries year round these days, so you can make it anytime you like. We’ve also found them to be easy to grow in the garden and we’re always looking for ideas of what to do with all those poblano peppers.

Why you’ll love this Creamy Poblano Sauce

It has a refreshing taste– Use this sauce on any Mexican-style dish to brighten it up and give it a punch of poblano and cilantro flavor.
Use up those poblanos– If you’re growing poblano pepper in your garden like we are, you’re probably running out of ways to use them.
It goes on everything– I love this poblano cream sauce on tacos and burritos, but it’s also perfect for drizzling over nachos or enchiladas. You can even serve it as a dip- it makes a much lower calorie alternative to queso.

Ingredients for Creamy Poblano Sauce

Poblano Peppers – 2 to 4 depending on their size
Butter – Salted or unsalted is fine. Just adjust your salt accordingly
Onion – We recommend sweet onions
Garlic – Freshly diced
Flour – Plain all purpose
Chicken stock – use vegetable stock if you want to be this poblano cream sauce vegetarian
Half and Half – you can use whole milk but your sauce will be less creamy
Salt – plain table salt
Cumin – ground
Lime juice – freshly squeezed is always best
Cilantro

Exact measurements are in the recipe card below.

How to make Creamy Poblano Sauce

First you’ll roast your peppers, let them cool, and then peel them. They can be roasted over an open flame (like a gas cooktop), on a grill, in the oven at 425 degrees or under a broiler. Just turn them to get an even char like in the photo below. The roasted peppers will be easier to peel if they’re steamed by cooling in a zip loc bag or in a bowl covered with plastic wrap.
Cut the pepper flesh away from the ribs and seeds and then dice it.
Melt the butter in a deep pot and then add diced onion and the peppers, cooking and stirring until the onions are soft.
Add the garlic and cook about 1 minute.
Mix the stock and cream and whisk in the flour, until there are no lumps.
Slowly stir the stock mixture, salt and cumin into the pot and keep stirring until thickened.
Stir in the lime juice and cilantro.
If a smooth sauce is desired it can be blended with an immersion blender or briefly in a food processor.

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Expert Tips

For easy peeling of poblano peppers that have been roasted and cooled, scrape lightly with a small paring knife.
If using an immersion blender, make your poblano cream sauce in a deeper saucepan.

Substitutions and Variations

You could try some jalapenos for some extra kick. You can have fresh peppers ready year round when you freeze them.

Vegetable stock may be substituted for chicken stock if a vegetarian sauce is desired.

Storage

Refrigerator

This sauce will keep very nicely, refrigerated for 3-4 days if tightly covered.

Freezer

We have not tested freezing it, but creamy sauced generally have an unpleasant texture change when frozen.

a spoonful of poblano cream sauce over bowl.

What to serve with Poblano Cream Sauce

This recipe has a Mexican-inspired, southwestern type flavor, so you’ll find it a natural with Fish Tacos with Baja Sauce, Low Carb Enchiladas- Beef & Bean, or any other Mexican dish.

However, it also makes an interesting topping for fish or grilled shrimp skewers and this poblano cream sauce is excellent over grilled blackened chicken or anything made with our slow cooker shredded beef.

If you love sauces like we do, you’ll want to check out these 10 Best Sauces.

Want more poblano recipes? Check out these:

Recipe Video

Recipe FAQs

Are poblano peppers spicy?

Typically, they are not. They have a unique taste that adds a great level of flavor to any dish. Unless you are using a very small, one you will most likely find the heat to be minimal. That being said, ‘spicy’ is a term that means different things to different people, so we advise nibbling a tiny bite to check.

How do you roast poblano peppers?

They can be roasted over an open flame (like a gas cooktop), on a grill, in the oven at 425 degrees or under a broiler. Just turn them to get an even char. The roasted peppers will be easier to peel if they’re steamed after roasting by cooling in a zip loc bag or in a bowl covered with plastic wrap.

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