Best Hatch Chile Recipes | Cooking On The Weekends (2024)

FAQs

Do you have to peel Hatch chiles after roasting? ›

The skins will slowly blacken, and dependent on the temperature of your heat source, you should be done in about 10 minutes. Once all the skin is charred, you can peel it off and remove the stems and seeds. Voila! You've officially roasted your first batch of Hatch chiles.

Hatch chiles offer an ideal balance of heat and sweetness.

Hatch chiles range in heat level from mild – for those seeking just the smoky flavor – to extra hot, which rivals the New Mexico sun on the Scoville scale (we assume).

Yes, like any fresh food, roasted Hatch Green Chile can go bad. Once the chiles are roasted, they need to be refrigerated and typically used within a week to maintain their best flavor and quality. If you've opened a jar of roasted green chiles, they should be used within 7 days after opening, even if refrigerated.

Close the bag or tightly cover the bowl, and let stand for 10 to 15 minutes. The steam will help loosen the peel from the chiles. Peel, seed, chop (optional). The chiles may be peeled and seeded prior to freezing or later, as needed.

The seeds tend to contribute heat. The ribs inside the pepper tend to be bitter. The skin is inedible in many types of chiles. Hatch chiles for example are always fire roasted because the skin has an inedible outer layer.

You can pick them right off of the plant (or bring them home from the market), wash and dry them, and put the chiles in a freezer ziptop bag. That way you can pull 1 or more chiles out of the freezer whenever you need them. The chiles will loose their firm texture when they're frozen raw, but their flavor is unchanged.

The most important step in processing green chile is removing the outer skin, which is necessary before further cooking or canning. The skin is not easy to chew or digest and can affect the texture and appearance of dishes.

The typical season for chile here in the Hatch Valley runs from the first of August through the end of September. However, depending on the weather, we may have chile coming off by mid July.

Hatch green chile peppers can range on the Scoville Scale from 1000 to 8000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). However, some can be much hotter. For comparison, jalapeños are usually between 2500 and 8000 SHU. They are pretty similar in heat, but the average Hatch chile is milder than the average jalapeño.

Chile peppers increase the enzymes responsible for fat metabolism in the liver and are used in the treatment of blood clots; the capsaicin helps to thin the blood. They also may help prevent the growth of certain cancers and aid in many skin conditions including psoriasis, itching and bruising.

How can you tell if green chili has gone bad? ›

Fresh chiles that have gone bad will often become soft or mushy and may develop dark spots or mold. If your chiles have an off smell or if you can see mold or other discolorations, it's best to discard them.

At Sichler Farms, we sell chile in a variety of quantities. Our two most popular quantities are the sack and the bushel. A sack is 35 pounds, and a bushel (a quantity of measurement) is approximately 20-22 pounds.

The green chiles turn red as they ripen. In general, fresh and/or roasted chiles are green and dried chiles and dried chile powder are red. In any case, they start green—when many people harvest and roast them—and turn red as they ripen.

New Mexico/Hatch Chiles

These long green chiles are virtually identical to California and Anaheim peppers, with one distinct difference: they are much, much hotter. Hatch chiles are New Mexico chiles that are grown in the small town of Hatch, New Mexico, and are considered premium green chiles.

The reason Hatch Chile are so special is that they are considered by many to be the best tasting of all chile peppers - especially when roasted! The roasting really brings out the delicious flavors – the thick flesh of roasted Hatch Chile has the best buttery, smokey, intense flavor!