If you’re looking for how to make smoked chiles we made them last night! Using fresh hatch chiles the smoked taste brings it to a whole new level of yum!
Fresh hatch chiles have a great flavor and a variety of heat levels for everyone’s preferences. We bought some this week and made a few recipes including these smoked chiles. Can you taste the smoky flavor already? They’re one of our favorite easy smoker recipes. (originally published 8/18, affiliate links present)
We started this journey creating a lot of electric smoker recipes. Those will work too if you’re looking for more ideas.
Were you lucky enough to catch find fresh hatch chiles in the grocery store this year?? If you were grab a bunch because they freeze well too.
To get your meats absolutely perfect we have this printable meat smoking chart to refer to so each and every time it will be fork tender.
- Recently we upgraded to this Traeger pellet smoker and grill and love it.
- We started with an electric smoker that was a Charbroil which worked well to start with.
- I like applewood pellets, we always have those on hand and make almost everything.
Preheat your pellet or electric smoker to 200 degrees F. Set chipotle, serrano, jalapeno or hatch chile peppers on a tray or over aluminum foil so they don’t fall through your grates.
Smoke jalapeños for 3 hours and then remove. If you’re not storing inside some adobo sauce you’ll need to dry them using a dehydrator or in an oven at 200 degrees for 8-10 hours. Store in airtight containers.
This depends on whether you want to use them immediately inside a recipe like our pressure cooker sausage rice casserole, or if you want to dry them and store them for later. Timing varies from 1-4 hours.
First of all they are huge and pretty beautiful to look at. But I got to know a bit more about them when I watched them being roasted right outside of the grocery store the other day. You can see my experience here. There are many varieties of hatch chiles. They can be found in mild – very hot!
I tasted a hot version and WOW it was a bit too much for me. I stick with mild that has just a bit of heat but a lot of flavor.
- Around August is when you can find them in the stores like this! Then you too can make lots of hatch green chile recipes.
I was told that if you roast them or have them roasted for you you can freeze them for years and years in freezer bags. One guy said he bought them in bulk and was still using them up to 5 years later!
Hatch smoked chiles
I have used them diced up fresh inside casseroles like you would a jalapeno or bell pepper. Since they’re baked with other softer ingredients they soften up quite nicely. They definitely add a bit of heat and smoke flavor to any dish.
Smoking them was something new we hadn’t done before. If you too are looking for a different burger topping like this hatch chile cheeseburger this is a great way to cook them. OR throw them into our chile relleno casserole recipe to add heat.
Cooking them on your barbecue works well too. That usually only takes about 5 minutes to blacken the skins since there is direct heat.
Smoked Chiles
- These takes a bit longer but at just about an hour the skins were like you see above.
- Shriveled with nice grill marks on the bottom where they were against the grates/shelves of the smoker. You don’t want them completely dried, just tender.
When you’re done it’s easy to slice them lengthwise and remove the seeds and membrane. Then you can easily push the soft insides off the skins to be used any way you want.
- Diced they’re great in this green chile chicken casserole.
- We added them into green chile rice is a great way to use them too.
You’ll just need:
- A pellet grill or electric smoker
- Hatch chiles – fresh, realize there are different heat levels so choose carefully
- Tongs
- Knife
If you wanted to leave them in longer and make a dried chile they could be saved for quite some time. That isn’t my preference. A dehydrator would work well for that process as well.
Let us know what you think and if you need another way of using them, try them on a smoked burger or with some smoked brats tonight!
Smoked Chiles
Ingredients
- 5-10 chiles, we used whole hatch chiles
- 1 bag wood chips, any variety
Instructions
- Lay chiles apart on racks in your smoker, do not overlap. If you want a really bold smoked flavor cut them in half and lay the open side up with the skin against the racks in your smoker.
- Put wood chips in your smoker and set to 200 degrees.
- Smoke for 60 minutes if left whole to achieve a soft chile with some grill marks on the side against the racks.
- Can put in a bag, tie, and they will continue to cook for a bit if desired or slice warm and use a knife or fork to scrape soft inside portion of your chile off and put on burgers or dice and put into casseroles etc…..
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
These are my husband’s favorite! I make them for him as often as I can.
Oh yay!