Skip to content
Kitchen Shelf

Chef's knife

Salsa Verde

Chopped herbs, capers, lemon, and olive oil. A sharp chef's knife keeps it textured; a blender would turn it into pesto.

Jump to recipe
A ceramic bowl of chopped salsa verde with a chef's knife, herbs, and lemon on a walnut board.

Salsa verde should look like you chopped it — little pieces of parsley, a gleam of oil, capers you can still see. That's the whole point of using a chef's knife instead of a food processor.

An 8-inch chef's knife and a board you can rock on is all you need. If the knife is dull, the herbs bruise and you get a wet pile. Sharpen, then chop.

Spoon it over the fresh fettuccine, grilled fish, roasted carrots, or toast. It keeps a couple of days in the fridge, oil on top.

Why you'll love this

  • 10 minutes, one board
  • The chef's knife is the method
  • Not a puree — you should still see the capers
  • Goes on pasta, eggs, vegetables, toast

Sharp 8-inch chef's knife

Salsa Verde

Chopped herbs, capers, lemon, and olive oil. A sharp chef's knife keeps it textured; a blender would turn it into pesto.

Prep
10 minutes
Total
10 minutes
Yield
About 1 cup

Ingredients

  • 2 packed cups (50g) flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • 2 Tbsp capers, drained
  • 1 small garlic clove
  • 2 anchovy fillets (optional, but they melt in)
  • Zest of 1 lemon, plus 1 Tbsp juice
  • ⅓ cup (80ml) extra-virgin olive oil, plus more if it looks tight
  • Pinch of red pepper flakes
  • Fine sea salt, to taste

Instructions

  1. 1

    Dry the parsley well. Wet herbs slide under a chef's knife and turn dark. Pile them on the board with the capers, garlic, and anchovy.

  2. 2

    Using a sharp 8-inch chef's knife, chop everything together, rocking the blade and gathering the pile back as you go. You want a coarse chop — pieces you can still see — not a paste. This takes a couple of minutes. Don't switch to a blender; it will oil-slick and puree.

  3. 3

    Scrape the chopped herbs into a bowl. Stir in the lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, and pepper flakes. Taste for salt — capers and anchovy already bring some.

  4. 4

    Let it sit 10 minutes if you can. The oil picks up the garlic. Spoon over whatever's for dinner.

Notes

  • No anchovies? Skip them and add a pinch more salt, or a tiny splash of the caper brine.
  • Cilantro can stand in for half the parsley. Basil bruises faster; add it at the end with a few extra chops.
  • If your knife skids on the parsley, it's dull. Hone it, then come back.

Special tool: Sharp 8-inch chef's knife. See the knives we use.