Salsa Verde Recipe for Pulled Pork

Homemade Salsa Verde for pulled pork barbecue on a site about SC BBQ?

Well, who said all the recipes had to be traditional?

This recipe comes all the way from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where John Padgett helped open The Naked Pig BBQ, a southern BBQ restaurant. He told us the story of how it originated:

“The salsa verde recipe is a little more interesting because of the avocado twist.

My wife is Mexican, so she talked me into having a salsa verde in the restaurant in case the locals asked for something more like their traditional carnitas style pork. I remember always having carnitas with the green salsa but had never made it, so I found a simple recipe.

By the way, there aren’t many variations of salsa verde in Mexico, so they’re all simple.

I headed out to the farmers market for the ingredients. While I was shopping for the tomatillos, there was a little old lady picking through them, so I began asking her questions in my broken “Spanglish” about the salsa.

She explained how to make it, and her recipe was the same as the one I had…with the exception that she added avocados, which really piqued my interest.

One morning while I was preparing the salsa, one of the Mexican boat captains that hung around the restaurant was watching me. When I started to add the avocados, a huge smile came over his face and he shook his head in approval.

He did this because not many taco stands or restaurants will add avocados due to the cost, but it is actually how the salsa is traditionally made.

I made this salsa verde with avocado chunks for pulled pork sandwiches and it is awesome, kinda like carnitas, only on a bun.”

Yum. Thanks, John!

Here’s John’s recipe for Salsa Verde with Avocado for Pulled Pork:

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Check out these other SC BBQ sauce recipes we’ve published on destination-bbq,  and we’ve published even more sauce (and rub) recipes in the SCBBQ Recipes: Going Whole Hog Cookbook. Read more about that here.

Sauces and Rubs:

Vinegar-Pepper Sauces

• Jay Phillips’ Whole Hog Sauce Recipe
• Dad’s Mop Sauce Recipe
• Eastern SC Vinegar-Pepper Sauce Recipe
• Moore Family’s Little Fisher Hog Sauce Recipe
• Lowcountry Vinegar Sauce Recipe

Mustard Sauces

• Swig & Swine’s Mustard BBQ Sauce Recipe
• Dukes BBQ-Style Sauce Recipe
• Dukes BBQ Sauce – “Actual Recipe”
• Simple South Carolina Mustard Sauce Recipe
• Bessinger’s-Style Gold Sauce Recipe

Tomato-Based Sauces

• John Padgett’s Kansas City BBQ Sauce Recipe
• Honey-Hickory Barbecue Sauce Recipe
• Bullies BBQs Thin Basting Sauce Recipe
• Cherrywood Signature BBQ Sauce Recipe
• “Carolina Red” Light Tomato Barbecue Sauce Recipe
• Basic Tomato Barbecue Sauce Recipe

Other Sauces

• Home Team BBQ Alabama White Sauce Recipe
• Moe’s Original BBQ’s Alabama White Sauce Recipe
• Brisket Mojo Sauce Recipe
• Roller Family Hot Sauce Recipe
• Salsa Verde with Avocado for Pulled Pork Recipe

Rubs

• Sticky Fingers’ Basic Dry Rub Recipe
• JB’s Smokeshack-Style Spicy Dry Rub Recipe
• Sticky Fingers’ Texas Rub Recipe
• BlackJack Barbecue Dry Rub Recipe
• Sticky Fingers’ Sweet Rib Rub Recipe
• Home Team BBQ Dry Rub Recipe for Chicken Wings Recipe
• John Lewis BBQ-Style Brisket Dry Rub Recipe