Stuffed Poblano Peppers AKA Chili Relleno

Thursday night: Stuffed Poblano Peppers AKA Chili Relleno (without the batter coating and frying).

The perfect storm for this was finding some great poblano and habanero peppers at the farms market in town, and having some leftover cauliflower/saffron rice from last night. Tonight’s dinner wrote itself.

I’ve been cooking some variation of these peppers for decades. Tonight was even more special because of a side that we’ve been creating lately, a combination of cauliflower rice and my saffron rice.

First step is the salsa. On the skillet we tossed the peppers, tomatoes, onions and garlic. Sear all of them. Put the blackened poblanos in a bowl and cover to loosen the skins. These were tossed with avocado oil before going on the griddle.

Put the rest in a blender/food processor with a little water, crushed black pepper and a hint of cumin and a little olive oil. Rough chop. In a pot, heat up some oil and some chopped onion till fragrant, and then pour in the sauce. Take a handful of cilantro and toss it on top, but don’t stir it in, just press it down with a spoon for the fragrance. Remove the stems before using.

With the griddle still hot, cook a couple/few chicken breasts. We seasoned our with Cajun seasoning, but salt and pepper would be fine.

Peal the skin off the poblanos. In a glass baking dish, lay down the peppers, cut a slit down the center and remove the seeds with a spoon. Now construction begins.

Open a pepper, press in a spoon of the rice mixture. Add in some low-sodium black beans. Top with a slice of cream cheese (we used Tilamuck). Add the diced chicken. Put your salsa on top of this. Sprinkle on some shredded Mexican cheese.

This goes into a pre-heated 400° oven for 15ish minutes, until the cheese is lightly browning.

Our salsa was REALLY hot (too many habaneros) so we served the meal with some nice cool watermelon slices as well as some leftover rice mix.

What a great meal! You can use a jarred salsa if you want to cut out half the work (and I certainly have done that), but the fresh salsa is far better. You can use any soft white cheese (jack, mozzarella…etc) but I have found I like the creamy-ness of the cream cheese the best. I also like doing a nice cheese sauce on top, but this is a complicated meal, so I skip that if I have shredded cheese in the fridge.