Learn How to Roast Hatch chiles in the oven and make your own diced roasted green chiles to use in your favorite recipes. Easy to freeze for later, so you can make the most of Hatch chile season!
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It's so easy to roast Hatch green chile peppers at home. Sure, you can buy cans of diced green chiles in the grocery store.
But, you can save money by buying fresh Hatch chiles and roasting them yourself. Then, dice them up and freeze the roasted green chile peppers for later to use in your favorite recipes!
We love them in Instant Pot Chicken Enchiladas, White Chicken Chile, Green Chile Cheese Squares and Pork Chile Verde. You can use them in any recipe that calls for green chiles!
And what's so special about Hatch chiles? Grown only in the Hatch Valley region of New Mexico ( The Chile Capital of the World ) near Las Cruces, these green chiles have an earthy, buttery, smoky flavor. This unique flavor comes from the soil and climate of the region.
So if you're buying green chiles grown in Southern California, they aren't authentic Hatch chiles.
Ingredients
The only ingredient you need for this recipe is fresh Hatch chiles. You can find them in season at farmers markets and most grocery stores.
You will also need equipment to roast the peppers, such as a rimmed baking sheet, aluminum foil or parchment paper, kitchen tongs, hot mitts and gloves (optional, but will protect your skin if you are working with spicy peppers.
How to Roast Hatch Chiles in the Oven
First, preheat your oven to 425 degrees f. Next, rinse the fresh chiles and pat them dry.
Then, place peppers in a single layer on a rimmed sheet pan lined with foil or parchment paper.
Place the baking sheet into the preheated oven on the center rack. This will ensure even heating.
Cook Time
Roast the peppers for 8 to 10 minutes. Use tongs to turn them halfway through the cooking process. The roasted peppers are done when they are charred and have blistered skin on both sides.
The exact cooking time will depend on your oven.
How to Steam
Remove the baking sheet from the oven. Fold the aluminum foil up and over the peppers, and allow the hot chiles to steam for 10 minutes.
This helps the skin become loose and easy to peel.
How to Peel Hatch Chiles
After 10 minutes, open the foil packet. Be careful -- it's hot! Let the roasted Hatch chile peppers cool down so they are cool enough to handle.
The skin on the roasted chiles will be loose and ready to peel. To peel the skin off the chiles, just grab one end of the pepper, and carefully peel the skin off.
Note -- you may want to wear gloves for this part to protect your hands. I personally, don't do this as I have been cooking with all kinds of peppers forever, and it doesn't bother me.
After all of the peppers are peeled, you can seed them and dice them or slice them. It just depends on how you want to use the green chiles. If you're making chile rellenos, you want to keep the roasted peppers whole.
How to Store
If you're not using the diced chiles right away, place them in an airtight container in the refrigerator. They will keep well up to 5 days.
To freeze Hatch chiles, place the diced chiles in a single layer in a freezer bag. I place 1 cup of roasted diced chiles at a time in a quart-sized freezer bag.
Lay the bags flat in the freezer. When the chiles are frozen, you can stack them to save space. Frozen chiles keep for 6 months to 1 year.
Substitutions
If you can't find Hatch peppers, you can substitute Anaheim chiles or poblano peppers. The flavors are similar, although poblanos are larger than the Hatch variety.
FAQ
Hatch chile growing season is a short season and typically runs from the beginning of August to the end of September. However, due to variations in weather, Hatch season can start in late summer as early as July and run as late as October.
You should. Hatch chiles have thick, tough outer skins that can be difficult to digest.
They are considered to be medium chiles, overall, not as mild as Anaheim peppers and not as spicy as jalapeño peppers. Hatch peppers range on the Scoville scale from 1000 to 8000 Scoville heat units.
Recipe
How to Roast Hatch Chiles
Ingredients
- 8 Hatch chiles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees f
- Rinse the chiles and pat dry
- Place chiles in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet lined with aluminum foil
- Roast for 8 to 10 minutes, turning halfway through the cooking process, or until the skins are charred and blistered on both sides
- Remove from oven, and wrap in foil to form a packet. Allow to steam for 10 minutes to loosen skins. Open foil and allow to cool
- When cool enough to handle, peel the skins from the peppers. Then, seed peppers and dice.
Notes
Nutrition information is estimated. Please do your own calculation to fit special diets.
Nutrition
It's super easy to roast Hatch chiles in the oven. Oven roasting is my favorite way and I think the easiest way to roast chile peppers. You can also roast these New Mexico chile peppers on a gas grill or over an open flame on your stove.
I hope you enjoy this easy recipe as much as we do. For more easy recipes, be sure to follow on social media and sign up for the weekly newsletter!
Louis says
Never knew it was that easy to do this! Had several left and didn't want to lose them. Now I have a few bags in the freezer. Thanks for the info1