Hatch green chile season is here!! If you live in the Southwestern part of the United States, you are probably familiar with the seasonal hatch green chiles. They come from the Hatch Valley in New Mexico, and they are typically available late summer-early fall. What’s so special about them? They have a delightfully tangy flavor and especially shine when roasted. They also have the perfect balance between heat and sweetness, although don’t be fooled, they can be dangerously spicy sometimes. It’s such a unique flavor that lends itself well to many different foods and recipes. We wanted to develop a new recipe to showcase the peppers and decided on a delicious hatch chile breakfast casserole.
Hatch Green Chiles:
Here in Dallas, a lot of the local grocery stores get crazy around Hatch green chile season. Central Market and HEB grocery stores, in particular, always have a ton of fun hatch chile flavored products. Our favorite thing that they do, however, is fire roasting the hatch chiles fresh every day. Like I mentioned already, our favorite way to enjoy the chiles is after they’ve been roasted. Buying them already roasted saves us a step at home. We use them in sauces like salsa or chimichurri, in corn bread or biscuits, with meats like pulled pork, in beans, or with eggs like this casserole recipe!
If you can’t find them already roasted, you can roast them yourselves over the grill or in the oven until blackened and then peel and dice them. You can also use canned diced green chiles if you can’t find hatch chiles specifically.
Casserole Ingredients:
While the hatch chiles really set this casserole apart, the other ingredients are key too! We use frozen hashbrowns to save time, but be sure to brown them first. We also used Italian sausage that we browned before as well. You can use any sausage you like — a traditional breakfast sausage would also work well. You’ll also need plenty of cheese! We used a combination of cheddar and jack cheese.
A note on your eggs — the type of eggs you use matters! I know eggs have gotten so expensive lately, but especially when we are making a very egg forward dish like this, we highly recommend to buy high quality eggs. We always reach for Vital Farms eggs. The yolks are such a deep golden color and the flavor can’t be matched.
Arranging the Casserole:
Start by layering the cooked hash browns and sausage at the bottom of the casserole dish. Layer the chiles and over top, then the eggs and lastly the cheese before baking in the oven. We baked ours for about 30 minutes, but you may need to adjust slightly depending on the size of your casserole dish.
Hatch Chile Breakfast Casserole
Ingredients
- 8 Eggs
- 1 Cup Whole Milk
- 1 Cup Shredded Cheddar or Jack Cheese
- 1 Cup Roasted Hatch Chiles Diced
- 1 Pound Italian Sausage
- 20 ounces Frozen Hash Browns
- 1½ Teaspoon Kosher Salt
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper
- ½ Teaspoon Garlic Powder
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350F and spray a 9x11 casserole dish with non-stick spray.
- Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat and cook the Italian sausage, breaking it up as you go. Set aside.
- Next, cook the hash browns until browned on both sides and set aside.
- Whisk the eggs, salt, pepper, garlic powder and milk together in a large bowl.
- Layer the hash browns in the baking dish, followed by the cooked sausage, then add the diced hatch chiles and lastly the cheese.
- Next, pour the egg and milk mixture over the casserole.
- Bake at 350F for about 25-30 minutes until the eggs are set.