In the United States all states have an official state bird and state flower. In the state of New Mexico (NM), the state bird is the roadrunner and the flower is the yucca. But what about the state “question”? New Mexico is actually the only state to have an official question and that question is - “Red or Green?”. Yep – that’s it – “Red or Green?” In NM every New Mexican restaurant asks you “Red or Green?” when you order your meal. If you’re not asked, then it’s not New Mexican food. It’s probably Mexican or Tex-Mex.
New Mexico Chile – Part I of a 4 part series
So why do waiters ask “Red or green?”? Because New Mexican dishes are typically smothered in a red or green chile sauce. When you order your enchiladas, chile rellenos, huevos rancheros, tamales, or stuffed sopapillas, the next thing you are asked is “Red or green?” – meaning – red sauce or green sauce. If you can’t decide, you can always order “Christmas” and get both. My standard orders are green with chile rellenos, red with tamales and huevos, and whatever I feel like at that moment for all other dishes.
NM Chile
NM chile – chile with an “e” – is a pepper grown in abundance across New Mexico. The most common pepper grown in NM is a long narrow pepper known in some parts of the world as the Anaheim chile pepper. In NM the chile varieties include Big Jim, Sandia, Rio Grande, and some no name chiles developed by small farmers that have spent years of growing and developing the perfect chile. But most of time they’re just called New Mexico chiles.
You may have heard of Hatch chile. Hatch chile is NM chile that is grown in Hatch, NM, a small village in the southern part of the state and one of the largest producers of NM chile. Chile from Hatch has become so well-known that every Labor Day weekend the village hosts a Hatch Chile Festival which draws more than 30,000 people from around the world. Having a population of less than 2,000, that’s a pretty big festival! But don’t get confused – not all of NM’s chile comes from Hatch. Most of the chile does come from southern NM, but a lot of great chile comes from other parts of the state.
Cultivation of Chile
Most of the chiles are picked green, but many are left to ripen on the plant and picked once they turn red. The green chiles are roasted and peeled for green chile sauce or just chopped green chile – my favorite. Red chiles are strung into ristras that are hung out to dry. Some places put them on the roof to dry. With our lack of humidity, chile dries pretty fast here. Once the chile has dried, it is turned into red chile powder or red chile sauce. More on that in Part II – NM Red Chile Sauce.
New Mexico Chile Ristras
Roasting Green Chile
Green chile is roasted, peeled, deseeded and chopped. Here in New Mexico you can buy a bushel or 30 to 40 pound sack of chile and either roast it yourself or have the seller roast it. I highly recommend having the seller roast it! The seller usually has a large gas powered roaster that can do the whole bushel at once. The chile peppers are dumped into a large grated container which rotates, tossing the peppers about. As it rotates a gas burner below the container sears the skins of the peppers. It only takes a few minutes, whereas if you were to roast that many peppers on the grill, it would take A LOT LONGER.
- Chile Roasters
If you are interested in roasting chiles on the grill, check out Monica’s post @ The Yummy Life. She has a wonderful pictorial process on How to Roast and Peel Peppers. The chile she uses looks like NM green chile or at least Anaheim peppers and her process is spot on. It’s the same one I’ve used for years.
I do love chile roasting season because it smells so good! This time of year (the fall), with these big roasters going, you can smell chile being roasted pretty much everywhere.
Once roasted, the chiles are peeled, stems and seeds removed, and sometimes the interior veins are removed. The veins, the whitish meat that runs the length of the chile on the inside, contains the majority of the capsaicin, the substance in pepper that provides the “heat”. So to make the chile milder, you can remove the veins. At this point the chile is ready to freeze or use immediately. The whole chile can be used to make chile rellenos and the chopped chile – well, it can be used for just about anything. More on that in Part IV – NM Green Chile.
Which is hotter – Red or Green?
As far as the heat of the chile, you never know until you taste it. I’ve heard many times that red is hotter, but then everything is relative. I’ve had some mouth numbing green chile – believe me! Just last weekend, four of us ate at our favorite little New Mexican restaurant (El Patio) and the green chile was so hot that we were all getting a little sweaty around the hairline. That’s one of the reason why you’ll always see honey on the table at a New Mexican restaurant. A little honey on a tortilla or sopapilla helps to reduce the burning sensation in the mouth.
When you purchase chile, you can usually choose between mild, medium, hot, or very hot. We normally get the medium because once you freeze it, it gets hotter. Don’t ask me the chemistry behind that because I don’t know it. What I do know is that I love my chile hot enough to feel “a little” heat, but not too hot to hide the wonderful flavor of the chile!
Final Note – Chile is addicting! So come back later for more, but before you leave, I’d love your feedback. Just leave a comment below. Thanks!
New Mexico Chile Series
Part I – Red or Green? and Christmas – Red and Green
Part II – NM Red Chile: Recipes
Part III – NM Green Chile: Recipes and Green Chile Stew and a Video
Part IV – NM Green Chile Enchiladas
Part V – NM Red Chile Enchiladas
This post has been shared with the following blog hop. Be sure to click on the link for more fabulous ideas.
Mix it Up Monday!, Weekend Potluck, Showcase your Talent Thursday
Just posted a few recipes on Indian chili pepper Pickles…and these chillies look perfect for the pickle!
I must have been looking at your chili pepper pickles post at the same time you were looking at this one! I was thinking the exact same thing!
Nice information on red and green chillies. Looking forward to other parts of the series.
http://spoon-and-chopsticks.blogspot.com/
I loved this post, very informative. I LOVE cooking with chiles. They do so much for the flavor of dishes, and frankly I don’t know what I’d do without them! Personally I tend to like the flavor of red chiles more than the green, but both definitely have their place.
Thanks so much for linking to my post about roasting chiles. We New Mexicans are of like minds. (I grew up there.) Red or green? I lean towards green, but love them both. I often end up ordering Christmas enchiladas–one red, one green. I grew up in New Mexico, and this post makes me homesick. Fabulous photos and summary of my favorite New Mexican ingredient–chiles!
So great to meet you! After seeing your post on roasting chile, I had a feeling there was some New Mexican influence.
Sorry for making you homesick. 
My husband and I vote Green! Both of us like the flavor better with most things and I find green easier to digest. I use poblanos exclusively for stuffing and any time a recipe calls for green pepper instead of using bells. Jim has to have his jar of pickled jalapenos with meals. You know how I love your grits and green chilis. I hope you share your recipe with the rest of us during your series.
Thanks for the great comments everyone! Sounds like we are all crazy about chiles and have personal preferences as to “red or green”.
Great pictures, MJ! Those red and green are fabulous!
And I’m looking forward to your recipes
What a great post! I’m looking forward to reading the rest of your chile series.
That is very informative and well-written. As a new New Mexican, I have a lot to learn. I am looking forward to the rest of your series.
I love green chile and pretty much anything. Red chile powder I use in beans, and in tamales. So glad there are internet sites where I can order green chile, since we now live in Massachusetts. (It’s really good in chowders.) My favorite in the fall is green chile chicken soup. Get a store bought roasted chicken, take meat off, put bones into a large pan cover in water and boil. Once you get the broth add diced potatoes cook til done. Add green chile, salt, and the cut up chicken just til heated thru. Great on a cold Fall day.
I liked the article and even though we left nearly 30 years ago we still have to visit relatives in late August and bring back several bushels that have been roasted, seeded and frozen to make it easier to take on the plane.
I’ve lived in North Carolina since 1986, born in Albuquerque, and each and EVERY year about this time I can almost smell the roasters on the corner of Isletta and Gun Club. You should see the looks I get adding green chile to grits.
This is such a great article, with so many points I was longing to know about, but didn’t know what or how to ask. I left New Mexico in my teens, so I have the tongue that is adicted to chile but no first hand experience in roasting, preparing, storing, then using chile in recipes. I’ve made my efforts at recipes, but not nearly as good as when real New Mexican cooks get at it. When I first moved to Baudette, MN on the Canadian border in 1960, the little local grocery story had to look on his frozen list to import some tortillas for me (then for the other military families that were familiar). He was surprised at how fast they were sold and had to double his order. I just bought my first bushel of freshly roasted Hatch, NM green chile from my local produce guy, who now goes every year to bring a good supply back to Granbury, TX. I would usually just buy his frozen product to use at home, and let my son do the cooking. LOL! But, I did let the chiles sweat, as instructed, then bagged them before peeling or deseeding, then froze them. I’ll try to do a better job next time, if I have the time and energy to peel before freezing. I like the heat, so do not want to take that out. I am looking forward to the rest of this series. Thanks so much for such good, practical information. I’ll definitely use it, as I definitely needed it. God bless all chile lovers!
One of the things I really enjoy every year, is allowing some of the chiles in a bushel to go ahead and turn red, but not start to dry out. Then I roast the red chiles, just like I do my green chiles. Or if they are done in bulk at the farmer’s market or which ever parking lot has the roasters…
The point is, I truly love the flavour of a roasted red chile, which I have not seen many people make an effort to utilize. It is like the cherry on top, simply the best of the roasted. It tends to be a bit sweeter, and intensified flavour. Much like a sun dried tomatoe. Or more accurately, a red bell pepper, when you saute or grill them, roast them, whatever… they end up sweeter than their green cousins. Same exact peppers, but the more maturity deepens the flavours and concentrates the natural sugars within the peppers.
I am a native NM and am saddened to hear that the numbers of chile farms is on the decline. The number of acres grown is at a frighteningly low number. We need to encourage growers and keep NM the special crop that it is.
Much like the Vidalia Onion and the Yakima Peach, the NM Chile, particularly the Hatch Green Chile is extra special and has unique flavours you can not find anywhere else on the planet.
Diane, I like the roasted red ones as well. In fact, we roasted some this afternoon! We’re really having a problem this year with the lack of water. I understand that Hatch planted cotton on a lot of its chile acreage because of the drought. So in addition to drought and the costs of farming, we have a lot smaller chile crop this year. So very sad! Good hearing from you.
WOW! Thanks everyone for all of the fantastic comments and feedback!!! It’s great to see so many chile lovers out there and people interesting in the whole NM chile thing. As many of you already know – it is a big thing here in NM. A lot of this feedback also proves the chile addiction. I look forward to hearing from you all again. I guess I need to get back to cooking!
What a great and informative post MJ! I loved reading it… I had no idea about NM chiles and I am looking forward to reading the other articles of the series! I can only imagine the aromas in the air! That would be great to smell!
Great pictures too, I particularly like the first one: amazing colors!
What a fun idea for a series
I love the shot of the chilie roasting, wow I bet the aroma is amazing for sure. I personally love them all red and green…looking forward to more 
mj, Wow. Great site and so informative about NM chile. I live in NM and know what it takes to get the green chile packaged and in the freezer so it can be used all year. I love green but go with red for huevos. I have tried a some of your recipes (both chile and non) and loved them. Can’t wait to try some more. The photo gallery is professional. Very impressed.
Such great info!
I love chiles… and learning new things about my food. Thanks!
Great article! Can’t wait for the rest of the chile saga. I came to chile via curries first, then around the pepper world to Colorado’s take on Mexican food. Started small but now there is a whole drawer in the freezer full of little bags of different peppers. We’re hooked!
Looks like we have more chile addicts!
Thanks for all the wonderful comments!
I love the picture of the chiles! You never see them like that in Hawaii. Very informative post – thank you for sharing!
MJ,
LOVE your blog and all your recipes look terrific. Can’t wait to try some of them. The photo of the red chili’s is very beautiful. Love the way they just flow down like that. I love them both, Red and Green. Learned a lot of info I did not know. Thanks for sharing.
love it! contrary to popular belief, typical puertorrican food is not spicy. we use many aromatic herbs and spices, but not chiles. however, I love spicy food. thank you for such an informative and well written post!
I visit New Mexico at least once a year, I lived in silver City for 13 years and visited the Hatch New Mexico Chile Farms.I am now living in New Jersey and i can’t understand why it cost’s so much to ship frozen Hatch Green Chile to New Jersey.I am going thru withdrawls and prefer not to eat out of cans. The thought of a Green Chile Cheesburger is allway’s on my mind. Can anybody help.
Jack
Thanks MJ! This is a great series.
Hey MJ,
You have really elaborated well on the red and green chile sauce which is main ingredient in New Mexican food style…
Me n my husband love mexican food as we both love the spicyness….but we r Pure vegetarian and jus wanted to knw whether the red chile sauce and roased green chile sauce has any meat Into it?
We r planning to visit this new mexican style restaurant but the only thing we dont knw is whether this sauce has any meat????
Thanks
I loved reading this! When we buy chiles we don’t get much of a choice and they are small. We tend to opt for a “Christmas” selection and I would say the green ones are fruitier and the red ones are hotter. Lovely Pictures!
Have you ever tried making green chile jelly? Like jalapeno jelly but with hatch green chiles. I tried it last hatch season and it came out more like syrup than jelly. The flavor was fantastic but the viscosity was not. Any suggestions other than doubling up on the pectin?
James, No I haven’t tried making it but it’s on my list of things to do in the fall when I can get some really fresh chile. Sorry yours came out syrupy. Have you tried reheating it? Sometimes when a jam or jelly comes out too soft, I’ll bring it back to a full rolling boil for additional time. I would recommend testing this out with 3 cups of the jelly. Bring to a full boil (one that can’t be stirred down) and boil for 4 minutes. Pour it back in the jar and let it sit overnight to see if it’s still to thin, too stiff or just right. Please let me know if this works for you! Thanks for asking and have a great Sunday!
I wish I knew the state question a few years ago before I visited New Mexico! I didn’t know it referred to chiles and may have embarassed myself just a bit while ordering breakfast burritos.
Haha…state question? I think I’ll go for Christmas as I can’t decide.
Oh yes…I do like a little heat in my chiles! Big Jims are good, just about the right level of heat for green chili. Those chile roasters remind me of my days in Colorado….sigh! Still miss the place.