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The best side dish you haven't had yet.
If you read the title of this piece and thought of the faintly green, often spinach-dyed linguine you can find in some pasta aisles, then keep reading. What we’re talking about is the deeply green, almost neon-bright noodles you’ll see served at Mexican potlucks, and more rarely as a barbecue side in Texas.
The dish has become emblematic of Barbs-B-Q in Lockhart, Texas, but has roots in Mexican-American home cooking. You might not be familiar with the side dish just yet, but it’s only a matter of time before it arrives on more barbecue menus and backyard cookouts across the South.
Get To Know Green Spaghetti
At Barbs-B-Q, you’ll find the dish listed on the menu as "green spaghett." It’s saucier than mac and cheese, with each long noodle coated in a vibrant charred poblano cream sauce that's mild in heat but deeply smoky.
Pitmaster and owner Chuck Charnichart uses sour cream and cream cheese in her recipe, giving the verdant side a silky consistency and slight tang. Like many of the sides on the menu, including the cacti de gallo (marinated green cactus, avocado, and tomato), the dish was influenced by the flavors of her upbringing.
“Both of my parents are from Mexico,” Charnichart, who grew up in Brownsville, Texas, told our barbecue editor Robert Moss. "Every weekend, they would have a cookout. It would be mainly chicken—pollo asado—plus beef finger ribs, jalapeño poppers, and some really good sides.”
Although rarely found in restaurants, green spaghetti, or espagueti verde, isn’t uncommon in Mexican-American homes (the rendition on Charnichart’s menu is her mom’s recipe). It’s common in the Rio Grande Valley, like Brownsville, although home cooks both in and outside of Texas are driving a conversation about the dish, especially on TikTok where it’s being introduced to a wider audience.
Some renditions are served with pan-fried chicken cutlets over top (milanesa de pollo in Spanish), like a greener and more complex chicken Alfredo. Others serve it without meat and a simple salty flourish of cotija cheese for garnish. Many recipes use chicken bouillon (Knorr brand typically) to intensify the savoriness of the poblano sauce. If searching for a recipe online, don't confuse it with Tallarines Verdes, a Peruvian green spaghetti influenced by Italian immigration in the country, which leans closer to a pesto.
Although enjoyed year-round, many Mexican families make this dish for special occasions, such as weddings or baptisms, or around the holidays, whether Thanksgiving or Christmas. This instantly reminded us of the sauce that New Orleans chef Ana Castro makes in her go-to Thanksgiving side dish, Rajas Poblanas With Potatoes.
Castro similarly uses charred poblanos as the base of her green sauce and cream cheese for richness, while amping up the color and flavor with fresh parsley and the heat of a serrano. She tosses tender potatoes in this silky sauce, but we could easily see it coating a noodle as well.
Ultimately, there’s no one way to make green spaghetti, or serve it. It’s just as delicious with barbecue brisket as it is alongside the holiday ham. You'll just want to serve it soon after preparing, as the sauce tightens as it sits—it's best to enjoy it as saucy and dangerously close to staining your shirt with every slurp as you can.
Read the original article on Southern Living
