It is once again chile season! But before you can enjoy this trademark food in your favorite recipes, you’ve got to safely process chiles and get them stored properly. Whether this is your first chile season, or you’ve lost count, we’ve rounded up some helpful tips to make this the best season yet!
The most popular way to store green chile is to freeze it. This helps to prolong the shelf life of the chiles for up to a year. Before storing your chiles in the freezer, you’ll want to remove all of the skin off of them.
If you receive your chiles already roasted, you can remove the skin relatively easily by peeling it off. To prepare and roast your own chiles, first blister the chiles to remove the tough outer skin. Then, make a small slit in the side of the chiles to allow steam to escape. Then, you can roast chiles in a single layer over a very hot heat source for 6-8 minutes per side. After you see that the skin is blistered evenly, place them in a plastic bag to steam for about 10 minutes. This final step will allow the skins to come of super easily.
Whenever you’re handling and processing chile, especially spicy ones, it is important to protect your hands by using disposable gloves. There’s nothing worse than working with chiles and touching your eye, only to have them burn for the rest of the day. If the chiles are especially spicy, handling them without gloves can even cause a tingling or burning sensation in your fingertips. By wearing gloves from the get go, you’ll avoid any of those potential hazards.
Here are a couple of our favorite gloves that will make a perfect protective companion to your chile preparations:
Care On Nitrile Exam Gloves are super comfortable and durable. They feature a completely micro-textured surface which will provide the grip you need when processing chiles, that can at times, be difficult to keep hold of.
Great Glove Latex Industrial Gloves are a powder free glove, so you don’t have to worry about that interfering with your chile prep. They are designed for food prep situations because they allow you to maintain tactile sensitivity and are durable, comfortable, and form fitting. You’ll just want to be aware of latex allergy risks when using these gloves.
