If you love spicy, you will love adding hatch chiles to your cooking (and baking!) Watch our video tutorial to learn how to roast hatch chiles either on the grill or on your stove. Here are also 12 delicious hatch chile recipes to help you explore new ways to enjoy these peppers!
Jump To:
- What Are Hatch Chiles?
- Varieties Of Hatch Chiles:
- How Spicy Are Hatch Green Chile Peppers?
- How To Roast Hatch Chiles On A Grill:
- How To Roast Hatch Chiles On A Stove:
- How To Roast Hatch Chiles In The Oven:
- How To Peel Blistered Hatch Chiles:
- What Can You Make With Hatch Chile?
- More Easy Pepper Recipes:
- The Best Hatch Chile Pepper Recipes:
- Comments
Delicious, fresh hatch chiles are in stores now...so if you like spicy, give them a try. Hatch chile recipes are incredibly popular in the southwestern and western portions of the United States.
Hatch chiles have a unique flavor and are deliciously spicy long green peppers that pack a fair amount of heat. The hatch chile season is short, so many chefs and people buy a case, fire roast them, and freeze them all year long.
Although most people use these chiles for savory recipes, you can also use hatch chiles in desserts! If you want to try something different, be sure to try this homemade Gluten Free Hatch Chile Apple Pie recipe!
What Are Hatch Chiles?
Authentic hatch chiles are grown in the Hatch Valley of New Mexico (hence their name!) and are a wildly popular spicy pepper. They are most common in the Southwest, but they also show up in other country areas like here in the Bay Area!
Several of our local grocery store chains now carry these peppers during the summer months. Green hatch chiles are not for the weak at heart because these hatch chile peppers can be spicy!
I used to think hatch chiles were a specific type of chile, but I was wrong. Hatch really just refers to a region where chiles are grown.
Varieties Of Hatch Chiles:
- New Mexico #20 is the mildest of the chiles.
- Big Jim is medium hot/spicy.
- Sandia Select is HOT.
- New Mexico green chile 6-4 is the most common chile.
How Spicy Are Hatch Green Chile Peppers?
These roasted hatch chile recipes are for you if you love spicy peppers. They are said to pack a medium heat, but I have had many that are a lot spicier. Follow along with me and find a new recipe using hatch chiles to try!
Are you ready to don your gloves and roast some New Mexico green chiles? I can't stress enough that you want to wear gloves when you are peeling the skin off these roasted chiles. If you forget and then touch your eyes, it really hurts!!
I tossed the green chiles onto my grill and allowed them to blister. You want the skins to be very blistered.
How To Roast Hatch Chiles On A Grill:
When choosing how to cook my hatch chiles, I most often grill the green chiles on my grill so they get a nice smoky flavor. The skin blisters quickly, and there is no real clean-up.
- Heat your grill to about 400º F.
- Wash your hatch chiles.
- Toss them on the grill rack whole. Occasionally, turn them to get dark spots (blistered) all over the chile.
- Let the skin get burned and blistered over the open flame! You want the skins to be very blistered.
- Remove from roasted peppers grill, and allow the peppers to cool. This will help to loosen their skin.
- It is good to don gloves and carefully peel off the burnt skin.
- Remove the stems and seeds.
- These are spicy, and a little hatch chile pepper goes a long way in a recipe.
How To Roast Hatch Chiles On A Stove:
- Turn on your stove.
- Heat a cast-iron pan until it is hot. Add a teaspoon or two of a high heat oil like olive oil. You just barely want to coat the pan, so less is better.
- Add the chiles and allow to char on each side. Turn to get the blistered skin on all sides of the pepper skin.
- Allow the peppers to cool.
- Follow steps 6-8 above.
How To Roast Hatch Chiles In The Oven:
- Turn on the oven broiler and move the oven rack up close to the burner, so the whole chiles are close to the heat source.
- Wash your chiles.
- Place the chiles on a sheet pan in a single layer.
- Broil the chiles until the skin is blistered. Use tongs to flip them over so that all sides are fire roasted.
How To Peel Blistered Hatch Chiles:
I get asked this question a lot. Hatch green chiles have very thick skins, and peeling them is important. The thick skin also leaves a not-so-good after-taste, so I am giving you easy directions to peel your green chiles.
- Once you remove the chiles from the grill, oven, or stove, place them on a plate or in a dish to cool slightly.
- This cooling allows the skin to soften, making peeling them a lot easier.
- Grab a hatch chile and pinch a blistered area and pull. The skin will pull back easily from the chile.
- I don't use the skins for anything, so I just toss the blistered skins into the trash.
I can't stress enough that it is very important to wear gloves when you peel hatch chiles. I learned this the hard way when I rubbed my eyes after peeling chiles. It definitely hurts! You can use rubber kitchen gloves or medical gloves.
(If you use medical gloves, put them on, then wash your hands to remove any powder residue before peeling the chile.)
The best way to preserve your hatch chiles is to freeze them. I freeze hatch chiles ALL of the time. Hatch chiles are only available for a few short months in the summer, so if you want to enjoy their spicy flavor all year round, you will want to freeze them. There are two ways to freeze your hatch chiles:
- Be sure the skin is removed before freezing the chiles. (See above How To Peel Hatch Chiles.)
- Make sure you fire-roast and peel the hatch chiles before freezing them! I place the peeled hatch chiles into a freezer-safe bag, squeeze out the air and freeze them.
- Freeze the hatch chiles in a single layer in a freezer bag, or chop the hatch chiles and put them into an ice cube tray. Pop the frozen cubes into a freezer bag. I have frozen my hatch chiles both ways. If you do not plan to make chile relleños, I recommend using the ice cube trays method.
What Can You Make With Hatch Chile?
You can make a variety of dishes with hatch chiles. Here are some of my favorite things to make:
- Chile Rellenos
- Enchiladas
- Burritos
- Chile con Queso
- Salsa and Chile Verde and other delicious sauces
- Wine - Yes, there is a company that makes hatch chile wine!
- Pies and desserts have become popular in the South.
Are you ready to feast your eyes on some delicious ways to enjoy hatch chiles?
If you love all types of chiles, here are 8 amazing Shishito Pepper recipes to try!
More Easy Pepper Recipes:
- Easy Gluten Free Stuffed Peppers
- Blistered Padron Peppers
- Sausage Stuffed Mini Peppers
- Bell Pepper Frittata
The Best Hatch Chile Pepper Recipes:
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This post was updated from an older August 2018 post with more information and tips for fire-roasting hatch chiles!
Jim
Put your roasted peppers in a plastic bag when you take them off the fire. Let them sit for 10 to 20 minutes, then peel. I just scrape the skins with a knife. Just finished 3 cases last week. Of course our grocery store does the roadting.
Sandi Gaertner
I love that idea of the plastic bag. Thank you so much, Jim. I can't wait to hear what you make with your chiles!
Sheryl
No grocery store in KC was grilling chilies this year so I did them on my gas grill and it was so easy and quick. They peeled so much easier than the ones I Bought that the stores do. Well never buy them cooked again!
Sandi Gaertner
That is awesome Sheryl!! We use a gas grill as well to fire roast our chiles.
Beth
What a great tutorial Sandi! Especially oven vs barbecue - sometimes I don't want to grill - I try to leave that to hubby. Can't wait for the season to come around again!
Sandi Gaertner
LOL, glad to give you options 🙂
Jenni
Man, as much as I love living in NC, I am far from the Hatch chiles and always feel left out when they're in season. What a great resource this page will be when I finally get my hands on some!
Sandi Gaertner
There is a company that will send frozen ones to you! Look up the Hatch Chile Company. They are really nice.
Leigh Olson
Hatch chile season is one of my favorite seasons! Our wonderful grocery will roast these tasty morsels of heat on demand. They do keep the roaster down wind from the store 🙂
Sandi Gaertner
You are so lucky that your store will roast these for you!! We had that when we lived in Austin but people/stores in the Bay Area just don't get it.
Rick Johnson
Sandi....This not about chili peppers, but it IS about your last name. I'm 78 years old and when I was a kid in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, one of my best friends was a fellow 12 year old....whose name was Freddie Gaertner. His dad, who was a pretty famous seascape artist died at about the same time. Just wondering if there is any 'kinship'...Gaertner is not a very common name. I heard Fred died over 20 years ago...
Rick Johnson La Quinta, Ca.
Sandi Gaertner
You are so thoughtful. I don't think this is a relative, but definitely interesting on the spelling of the last name.