Fire-roasted green chiles

Fire-roasted green chiles

It’s August, and that means it’s pepper season! Finally! We may not get enough sun and heat in Seattle to really successfully grow peppers, but luckily we’re just a few hours away from great, organic peppers growers. The Yakima Valley is home to quite a few pepper producers and they sell in all the local farmer’s markets. When I see the first big Anaheim peppers in the markets, I start stocking up! I buy 3-4 lbs of peppers every week until the end of the season, roast them on my charcoal grill and freeze most of them for later. They work great in chile verde, pozole, even scrambled eggs!

I don’t have a gas grill (it rusted out long ago), but fortunately, you can roast peppers over charcoal, or even under the broiler in your oven! It’s very easy to do and is worth the effort. This year I also roasted some tomatillos, which also freeze really well.

To start, make sure your peppers are clean. I use the mild green Anaheim chiles, but any variety will work. If you use hot peppers, make sure you are extra careful not to touch your eyes after handling them!  I also find it handy to trim the stems a bit. You don’t need to do it, but if they are long and curly, it can make turning the peppers a little trickier. You could also remove the seeds before roasting, but I like to keep them in because it’s very easy to remove them once you are ready to use them.

If you use a charcoal grill, use a LOT of charcoal so you can cover a large area and do multiple batches! This year, I filled two small charcoal chimneys with charcoal to do about 3 batches of 8-10 peppers and another batch of tomatillos on a 22″ Weber grill. Last year, I didn’t have the big Weber grill, so I converted my old gas grill to use charcoal by removing the rusted out gas components and adding a pan in the bottom for charcoal.

Using long tongs, place the peppers on the grill and char the skin on all sides. Depending how hot your grill is, this can take 5-10 minutes per side. I usually end up turning them a few time, both front to back and side to side.

Fire-roasted green chiles

Once the peppers are charred all over, remove them from the heat and place them into a dish that you can cover. If you don’t have a lid, you can use plastic wrap or even a damp dishcloth. Keep them covered for about 15 minutes or so. This will steam the peppers to finish cooking them and loosen the skins to make it easier to peel.

After the peppers have fully cooled, you can peel and de-seed the peppers and use them right away, or you can freeze them for later. Once they thaw, it’s easy to peel and seed them! Some people think leaving the seeds in makes the peppers hotter when you thaw them out, but these chiles are so mild, I don’t think it will make too much difference. Also, if you freeze them with the skins on, it protects the meat of the pepper from freezer burn and keeps the great flavor.

Roasted green chiles

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