Roasting or Blistering your homegrown chile helps separate the skin from the flesh, and imparts a more carmelized, smokier and tastier flavor to the chile! There are several ways that you can roast your homegrown green chiles:
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Grill: Place chiles over high flames or hot coals and turn frequently to char and blister the skins evenly on all sides.
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Stove: You can roast chiles a few at a time over a gas powered stovetop. Turn them often to evenly brown the skins.
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Air Fryer: We've heard air fryers work great to blister and brown the skins of chile, we'll have to try it if we ever get one of these kitchen gadgets!
We like to steam our chile in our old, trusted Pyrex casserole dishes with glass lids. They're perfect for steaming the freshly roasted chile to help loosen the skin as they cool. We don't recommend plastic bags for a couple reasons: they're wasteful, and who knows if they leach chemicals into your hot chiles as they cool? Plus, you can save every last drop of the carmelized chile juices when you put them in a dish to cool – that's FLAVOR BABY!
Once cooled, use your hands (or gloved hands if they're hot chiles) and peel off the blistered skin, and pull out the seeds. Put into a glass dish for storing in the fridge or freezer, or chop them up and enjoy them in green chile, on sandwiches, in dips, on pizza, hamburgers....
...you name it. Green chile goes with it!
Peeling chiles is time consuming, but SO worth it! Wear gloves if you're peeling hot chile, or make sure to watch well with soapy water when done. Don't rinse chiles under water, that washes away a lot of the carmelized chile flavor!
Sometimes, the skin comes off perfectly... that's so satisfying!
And, don't forget the rule of chile peeling:
Roasted Green Chile is one of the best flavors known to humankind.
If you can't get green chiles or Hatch chiles locally, grow them in your garden! They're easy to grow and nothing beats homegrown roasted chile!
Grow Green Chile Seeds »
