If you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time, it is no secret I LOVE Mexican food. I am always on the hunt for authentic recipes of my favorite Mexican dishes. I finally found a Mexican rice recipe I love, I nailed the green enchiladas, and a couple weekends ago I tried my hand at Chile Rellenos. I scoured the internet for a recipe and didn’t find one that satisfied me. So I took several recipes and put them together to create this masterpiece!
For those of you who aren’t Mexican food savvy, Chile Rellenos are essentially a roasted chile, stuffed with cheese (and sometimes meat), and fried in an egg white “dough”. Sometimes they are served with a tomato sauce and sometimes they are served by themselves. Seems highly involved, but I was surprised these Chile Rellenos weren’t too awful difficult. And they came together so beautifully! 
If you’re a visual person, Chowhound has a great photo step-by-step of the frying process, you can find the tutorial here. Side note, I used both anaheims and poblanos for my chile rellenos, I found the anaheims were more mild however they didn’t hold up as well as the poblanos did during the stuffing process. Next time, I plan on using just poblanos. They were much more simple to handle and fry.
PrintChile Rellenos
roasted pepper stuffed with cheese, fried, and served with tomato sauce
- Prep Time: 25
- Cook Time: 30
- Total Time: 55 minutes
Ingredients
- Peppers
- 1/2 pound pepper jack cheese, cut into wedges
- 1/2 pound cheddar cheese, cut into wedges
- 6 poblano chiles (can also use anaheim chiles)
- 5 eggs, separated
- 1 tablespoon flour + extra for dusting
- Sauce
- 1/2 medium onion
- 3 medium roma tomatoes
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 serrano or jalapeno pepper
- 1 tablespoon cilantro
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 cup chicken broth (possibly more)
- 1 teaspoon lime juice
- 2 teaspoons oregano
- 1 teaspoon chipotle pepper
- 2–3 tablespoons chile powder
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
Instructions
- Peppers
- If using fresh peppers, roast them by setting your oven on broil and placing the peppers on a baking sheet in the top part of your oven. Roast 10-15 minutes turning the peppers as they blacken. Once completely roasted, place in a plastic or paper bag and let sweat for about 10 minutes. The skins should peel right off of them. Once peeled, open up the peppers, remove the seeds and membranes for stuffing.
- Stuff the peppers with the wedges of cheese. Place seam side down on a baking sheet. You can use tooth picks to keep the peppers together.
- Lightly coat the peppers in flour. This helps the egg batter stick to the peppers.
- Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Beat the egg whites until stuff like meringue and then fold the yolks and 1 tablespoon of flour back into the whites.
- Heat oil a large frying pan over medium-high heat until hot, about 4 minutes. Here’s a great tip to check if the oil is hot: submerge the handle of a wooden spoon or a wooden chopstick until it touches the bottom of the pan—the oil should bubble vigorously. If you’ve put toothpicks in the chiles, remove them before you start frying.
- Working with 1 chile at a time, drop 1/2 cup of the egg batter into the oil and use a spatula to spread it to about the same size as the stuffed chile. Lay the chile seam-side down on top of the batter.
- Drop another 1/2 cup of batter on top of the chile, spreading it with the spatula to cover the sides and encase the chile.
- Cook until the bottom of the chile is golden brown, about 2 to 3 minutes. Using a spatula and a fork, carefully flip the chile over and cook until the other side is golden brown, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the chile from the oil and place in a casserole dish.
- Sauce
- In a blender or food processor, puree the onion, tomatoes, garlic, serrano pepper, cilantro, and tomato paste. In a medium saucepan, add the oil and cook over medium-high heat. Add the flour and whisk until combined. Cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the pureed tomato mixture to the pan, reduce heat to low. Slowly whisk in the chicken broth. Season with lime juice, chipotle powder, chile powder, oregano, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook for about 10 minutes or until thickened. I set my stove to low and let the sauce cook while I fried the chiles.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Once the chiles are all fried and in the casserole dish, cover with the tomato sauce. Sprinkle shredded cheese over each chile relleno. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes until cheese has melted and sauce is bubbling.
- Serve and enjoy.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 6
