Hatch Chilis have begun to arrive in my area. Yea !

I am very familiar with charring them, peeling and then freezing them.

However, due to a lack of personal time and also the short time they're available, my question is: Can I just freeze them in their green natural state? Then later, take some out, thaw them, then char them as usual?

No one I know can give me a definitive answer it this is a good practice giving good and safe results, and google has left me hanging with no conclusive facts. It seems that the only way, and best way, is to char, peel, de-seed and freeze.

Thanks in advance.

I would recommend to roast and then freeze.

For the last couple years my SIL has been getting us a bushel of Pueblo chiles and freezing them roasted until we could make it to town to get them.

They are easy to peel and seed when thawed.

Be sure to freeze in small quantities like one or two pound packs.

I don't have experience with freezing & then roasting, but jalapenos & anaheim (very similar to hatch) freeze well. They get a little soft, but otherwise you can't tell much difference from fresh. I'd try it in a pinch, I doubt it will be a disaster.

For anaheim, I roast (aka, char), steam in a plastic walmart sack (per my Mexican overlord), peel & dehydrate (stem & seeds untouched. I'd be dead if I tried to de-stem them - I was warned). I could wear the ziplock bag of dehydrated chilis over my head & die a happy man. It would be tough to decide between them or my chipotles.

I like Hatch chilis, but I'm too far east to have much experience & never fresh. From my experience, they're the same as the anaheim that I grow (opinion subject to change if I ever get some fresh, real Hatch)

First, it's "Hatch green chile". "Chili" is a meat WITH beans thing.

I would recommend roasting them BEFORE freezing. The integrity of the skin/flesh helps the chile to roast the way one would normally expect: the skin chars and begins to peel, the flesh softens.

If you freeze them before, you will heavily damage the integrity of the chile flesh, likely making them too soft. If most of the cell walls have been breeched due to internal formation and expansion of ice crystals during freezing, not only will the chile be much more fragile (mushy), you'll lose more of the compounds during roasting that are responsible for their awesome flavor. Much of the chiles may just fall apart during roasting.

I get mine roasted fresh in a rotating drum over propane burners. The chile flesh will slightly soften during this, but stays relatively intact.
Then they place the chiles in a plastic garbage bag to steam on the way home. When I get home, I peel and freeze. I have also peeled and canned them, which worked very well for shipping and saved freezer space.

I typically get mine in person from: Sichler Farms

If you freeze, do it as cold as possible; that is, when the water inside the cells freeze, the water crystals expand and puncture the cells (turns food to mush). The faster something freezes the smaller the crystals; the smaller the crystals the less cell damage which occurs during the freezing process.

If you're going to freeze them, crank your freezer as cold as possible the night before (cold soak the freezer).

According to all I have ever heard, gotta roast them first.

Roast and peel, then freeze.

quote:

"Chili" is a meat WITH beans thing.

Made even BETTER with Hatch Green Chillys.

Around here they'll roast them for you at the supermarket. Same price, cheap. Maybe check into that.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

"Chili" is a meat WITH beans thing.

Made even BETTER with Hatch Green Chillys.

Oh snap.