New Mexico Chile

This breakfast burrito recipe from Eric See requires shredded hash browns and New Mexico chiles. And that’s perfectly fine by us.

Dried chiles add tons of complex flavor to this saucy, shreddable chicken with little extra work—our kind of cooking.

Pork shoulder gets the Goa spice treatment, with star anise, fennel seeds, coriander, cumin, cloves, and more, courtesy of chef Vivek Surti of Tailor in Nashville.

If boning the whole chicken legs isn’t your thing, just use eight skin-on, boneless chicken thighs instead.

The shrimp is even better when it’s grilled.

This vegetarian Thai curry from the restaurant Thai Fresh in Austin is less spicy and more fragrant than you might expect; add a dried chile de árbol if you like heat.

This braise gets its deep flavor and color from dried New Mexico chiles. Find them in the produce section.

Use this smoky, chile-based Mojo Rojo sauce to add color and heat to blanched cauliflower, green beans, or broccoli.

This sauce is delicious with the chiles rellenos, but would also be perfect drizzled over enchiladas or added to your favorite chili.

Monte Cristo sandwiches usually have a sweet element, like powdered sugar sifted over the top, or raspberry jam served on the side for dipping. In this version, you’ll cook green apple and canned green chiles down into a sweet and spicy compote to slather on your bread.

To me, chili powder need not be superhot, but you can change that if you like—just add cayenne or some spicy dried chiles (most of the common dried red ones you find are pretty fiery). But it is easy enough to add heat at any stage of cooking or even at the table, whereas the warm, welcoming flavor of good chili powder is hard to come by. When you’re buying dried chiles, look for those that are not brittle; they should retain some moisture and even be a bit soft.

Four Horsemen’s glorious take on patatas bravas requires cooking the potatoes three times (once blanched, twice fried). We wouldn’t make you go through all that if it wasn’t worth it.

Ready in no time, this chunky and spicy soup requires very little cleanup.

A blender and a saucepan are all you’ll need to cook this peanut-thickened chili. In authentic Mexican fashion, the nuts, along with the dried chiles, garlic, cilantro, and cumin, are blended with tomatoes and chicken broth to create an earthy, spicy stew base. Pulled rotisserie chicken—a brilliant time-saver—and fiber-rich beans complete the magic. To turn this into a “meatless Monday” meal, replace the chicken with another can of beans and use a good-quality veggie broth. And always remember to wear gloves while handling chiles.

One herald of fall’s cooler weather in northern New Mexico is the ristra—the strings of ripe, red chiles that hang outside to dry alongside doorways and against brown adobe walls. Once dried, the chiles are stored to use throughout the winter in sauces like this one. This recipe is a classic New Mexican red chile sauce and the perfect stage for a whole range of Southwestern foods or as a base for other, more complex sauces from barbecue sauce to moles to stews.

This recipe highlights the wonderful flavor of the fresh green chiles widely abundant at roadside stands throughout New Mexico during the late summer and all through the fall. Often the chiles are roasted on the spot in hand-turned, butane-fired drums. You can smell the roasting chiles long before you can see them. Just follow your nose to find a vendor, as the air is thick with fiery oils that can clear your head. I look forward to fall in Santa Fe every year mainly because of that nostalgic, pungent and spicy aroma I have come to love.

Our friend Mary Ellen Chavez of Belen, New Mexico, owns the wildly popular Burritos Alinstante, a small chain with a cultish following in the Albuquerque area. When he met her, R. B. (a swamp Yankee from Rhode Island) asked what kind of Mexican food she served. “We don’t serve Mexican food, R. B., it’s New Mexican,” she gently corrected. “New Mexico is the only place for red and green chiles like ours.” Serving her mother’s famous burritos with New Mexico red and green chiles has earned the small chain Best of Show among more than 230 vendors at the New Mexico State Fair. Number one on the menu is Carne Adovada, pork that’s first browned or grilled, then slow-cooked in New Mexico red chile sauce. We’ve swapped Mary Ellen’s restaurant steam pan for a slow cooker. Fortunately, dried New Mexico red chiles are available pretty much everywhere now. To make the sauce, rehydrate the dried chiles in hot water and blend them with garlic and a little water. After a warm night in the slow cooker, you’ve got breakfast burritos Alinstante. Mary Ellen has yet to tire of them, but she limits herself to one a day.

This hearty Mexican stew is made with pork in a red chile broth that’s studded with hominy. Build the base by toasting two kinds of dried chiles, then purée into a paste that gets sautéed in oil.

The flavors of Mexico enliven this very adaptable spice paste, which is excellent on grilled beef and chicken as well as pork. If you want to make the flavor even more complex, substitute crushed chile de árbol, dried pasilla, or New Mexico chiles for the red-pepper flakes.

Thickened with peanuts like some Veracruz sauces, and made with the classic Mexican technique of blending and then frying the sauce ingredients, this mild chili makes for an earthy modern-day meal.