Creamy Mexican Green Spaghetti (Espagueti Verde)

Mexican Green Spaghetti, also called espagueti verde and spaghetti verde, tosses cooked spaghetti pasta (I used trofie, a twisted pasta shape) with a creamy green sauce made from roasted poblanos, Mexican crema, garlic, cilantro, and queso fresco.

This is a perfect vegetarian main dish for busy weeknights.

Jump to Recipe

Want to make this recipe perfectly the first time? I want to help with that. So, check out this Table of Contents to see which sections of this post will help you the most.

Jump to:

• 🤷‍♀️ What are poblano peppers?
• 🌶 What's a good substitute for poblano peppers?
• ❤️ Why you'll love this recipe
• 🧅 Main Ingredients + Notes
• 🔪 Recommended Equipment
• 📝 Instructions Overview
• 💡Ideas for Possible Variations
• 📇 More Vegetable Pasta Dishes For You
• Mexican Green Spaghetti (Espagueti Verde)

If you need dinner ready pronto, one of the best strategies is to have a sauce like this on hand already made. Other sauces I like to have hanging around my refrigerator are a Gribiche Sauce, Smoky Spicy Roasted Tomato Sauce and an Avocado Cream Sauce (for tacos!).

They can be tossed with pasta, grains, legumes or vegetables during the week for easy healthy lunches and dinners.

🤷‍♀️ What are poblano peppers?

This recipe calls for poblano peppers. If you're unfamiliar with them, they're a large dark green pepper, oblong, and heart-shaped. When eaten raw, they're spicy, IMO, even though I've read reports that call them mild.

They're typically roasted or grilled whole and peeled. But there are lots of recipes that call for them to be chopped and sautéed. The longer they're roasted, the milder they become.

In some parts of the world, including the United States, they are sometimes referred to as pasilla peppers.

In my experience, if you're at a Farmer's market where they roast them on-site, they're not very deeply roasted and will be pretty spicy. This happened to me in Santa Fe for a dinner I was making that night for a party, and had to add a LOT of cheese to balance the heat.

Poblano peppers are fantastic with potatoes in a gratin and as part of a broth for Mexican spaghetti soup (Sopa de Fideo Verde).

🌶 What's a good substitute for poblano peppers?

If you can't find poblanos (or pasilla chile peppers), you can substitute Anaheim or Hatch chile peppers. Anaheim peppers are slightly less spicy than poblanos. Hatch chiles have a big range of spiciness, but are typically spicier than their sister Anaheim pepper.

❤️ Why you'll love this recipe

• Flexible use. This poblano cream sauce can be used for veggies dishes such as cauliflower and potatoes, or tossed with grains such as rice or farro.
• Super easy recipe. Most of the time is used to roast and peel the poblano peppers.
• Make-ahead options. Make the sauce ahead to turn this recipe into one that can easily be made in less than 30 minutes.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products and foods I use in my kitchen. This means that at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. To view my entire storefront of recommended kitchen tools and equipment, check out my shop on Amazon.

📝 Instructions Overview

Detailed instructions for making this Mexican Green Spaghetti pasta dish are in the recipe card below, but here's a quick overview!

Step 1

Cook the pasta. Cook the pasta according to the package directions.

Step 2

Roast the peppers. Roast until they have blackened skin, and stack them in a container with a lid. Steam for a few minutes to make them easy to peel. Stem, seed and peel the poblano peppers.

Step 3

Blend the peppers. Blend the roasted peppers with the cilantro, crema and milk in a countertop blender.

Step 4

Make the sauce. Combine the remaining ingredients except the queso fresco in a skillet and fold in the cooked pasta. Serve with crumbled queso fresco on top.

I have a whole jar of this now that I'm putting on roasted potatoes, farro tossed with roasted tomatoes, and I've even used it with queso fresco over a salad with a little white wine vinegar.

💡Ideas for Possible Variations

Variation #1: Typically, this pasta is made with roasted chile poblano, and this is not a spicy pasta dish. But you can add other peppers for more heat. For example, both Serrano peppers and jalapeño peppers are significantly more spicy than poblano peppers.

Stem the pepper, slice in half lengthwise, and remove the seeds and pith. Either roast it with the poblano pepper or mince and sauté in butter until softened before add the garlic.

Variation #2: Peel and slice one-half of a white onion into ½" slices. Place them on the sheet pan with the chiles, drizzle with a little olive oil, and roast under the broiler. Add to the blender with the peppers to purée.

📇 More Vegetable Pasta Dishes For You

Another pasta dish that super easy and delicious is tossing cooked pasta with this sun dried tomato pesto that's also vegan. Just top the pasta with freshly grated Parmesan cheese (there are some very good Parmesan style cheeses now that are vegan), and serve with crusty bread. You can serve it warm or at room temperature.

Another room temperature vegetable pasta dish is this Mexican Street Corn Pasta Salad. Mexican Street Corn is addictive, and a popular street food. This recipe turns it into a pasta salad.

Or if you want a slightly hardier pasta, make this romanesco pasta recipe. It's all tossed in a creamy cauliflower soup that's vegan. The pectin in cauliflower helps to make a creamy sauce without any dairy at all.

And if you grew up with chicken tetrazzini as a kid and loved it, I recommend checking out this vegetarian tetrazzini with cauliflower, kicked up with poblano peppers. I love it so much, I included a version of it in my cookbook!

Another approach to pasta is to mix spaghetti noodles with a pasta sauce, and then layer with cheese in a casserole, like this Baked Spaghetti Casserole.

Lastly, if you want something uber-simple, go with this classic spaghetti alla vodka.

Modified from La Cocina de Leslie blog.