Hatch Chile and Chorizo Breakfast Pie

Want to spice up your brunch game? This Hatch Chile and Chorizo Breakfast Pie is the answer! And make it in advance for the win! 

If you live in the south (especially in Texas or New Mexico), Hatch Chile time is like football season. It may not have a Hallmark card made in its honor, but by golly we celebrate it, give praise and make lots of food based in its honor.

If you’ve never had the privilege to partake in enjoying hatch chilies, I’m about to give you a reason to book a plane to your nearest Market Street to load up on this lovely little pepper that’s available for a short time in August/September.  It’s got cheese, eggs, chorizo, tortillas and a whole lotta love. And it’s SOOO good you’ll make it for breakfast and still be craving more of it at dinner (although it won’t make it past lunch time!)

However, I thought we’d do things Alton Brown style (my ultimate foodie crush) and take a look at when, how and what made the hatch chile “hatch” into such a phenomenon.

Let’s take a trip to where it all started. In a most appropriately named town in New Mexico called Hatch. Similar to the fact you can only call champagne if it comes from the region of France otherwise you have to call it sparkling wine, Hatch chiles are technically only grow in the Hatch Valley of New Mexico. And while I can go on about how Christopher Columbus is also a part of the pepper story and how space ships enter the picture, we have some Hatch Chile & Chorizo Breakfast Pie to eat.

But first, other than taste, do peppers have any real nutritional value?

Photo from Market Street Facebook Page

According to the official Hatch Chile Festival website, there are a lot of “capsational” reasons to enjoy chiles:

• One fresh medium-sized green chile pod has as much Vitamin C as six oranges.
• One teaspoon of dried red chile powder has the daily requirements of Vitamin A.
• Hot chile peppers burn calories by triggering a thermodynamic burn in the body, which speeds up the metabolism.
• Teas & lozenges are made with chile peppers for the treatment of a sore throat.
• Capsaicinoids, the chemical that make chile peppers hot, are used in muscle patches for sore and aching muscles.
• Chile peppers are relatives of tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants, all belonging to the nightshade family.
• The color extracted from very red chile pepper pods, oleoresin, is used in everything from lipstick to processed meats.
• There are 26 known species of chile pepper, five of which are domesticated.

Adapted from the New Mexico Chile Institutes’ “Chile Pepper Facts”

But you want to know the best reason to eat ’em? It’s because everything taste better with hatch peppers. And I’ve taken all the best parts of a Mexican breakfast along and added a little hatch for a perfect breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner meal (we actually ate this as a snack and it didn’t make it to a meal it was so good!)

Once you have your first hatch experience, you’ll be ready to hatch everything! ST find more recipes on the Market Street Hatch Chile Fest Pinterest board! And if you do make anything, make sure to tag it #HatchChileFest and it might end up on the board too!

What do you think Hatch Chiles would be good with?