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Try This Hatch Green Chile Verde Recipe

July 26, 2026 • 52 comments • Posted in: chili, hatch chiles, slow cooker

I have to admit, I'm not sure whether green chile/chile verde is officially from Colorado, New Mexico, or somewhere else in the southwest. What I am sure of is that it's incredibly, impossibly good. If you've never tried it, it's like Texas chili but lighter, brighter, and way more fun (not dissing Texas chili though, I love Texas chili).

Hatch season is here

This is one of my favorite times of the year when the peppers are in season, spicy and smoky. The big roasting events happen at our local grocery store and we come home with a big box of new green chiles for the year. They last for a week or two if you're careful, so we eat as many as we can before we have to freeze them. Usually we eat through about 5-6 ziploc bags full in that time.

Green Chili, Chile Verde, or Pork Stew?

In New Mexico this is just called pork stew, and for me it's the best version of pork stew I've ever had. I thought our favorite tonjiru from Tokyo might put up some competition, but after tasting chile verde, it was a hands down clear winner for my top pork stew. If you ever see bags of Hatch chiles for sale you need to buy some up and make this dish asap. It's a perfect stew for warm summer nights or cozy winter evenings.

Tomatillos in chile verde

Tomatillos are not really a traditional ingredient, but the smokiness of the roasted tomatillo pairs perfectly with the chiles and is what makes this specific version stand out, for me. I have definitely tried (and love) a version with all Hatch chiles, but the heat can be a bit much for those not used to spicy, like Steph.

Hatch vs other green chiles

This recipe uses Hatch chiles because it's Hatch chile season, but if you don't live near the southwest, you can use Anaheims + a spicy green chile of your choice (such as jalapeño, serrano, and my favorite: thai). If the first half of the recipe looks familiar, that's because it's our 4 Ingredient Hatch Chile Salsa Verde, meaning you can double those ingredients and have yourself some awesome salsa to serve on the side. You'll get a lot of purists tell you that Hatch is not a chile, it's a village in New Mexico. That's true, but unless you live in New Mexico, any chile you find at a grocery store is going to be called Hatch chile, it's a catchall for in-season New Mexico grown chile, and it's way better than Anaheim or any other chile you've tried, to be perfectly honest.

Best cut of pork for chile verde

The cut on pork used here is pork shoulder. I had to take off the skin and trim it off the bone, but if you can find boneless pork shoulder, it will make this recipe far far easier. This recipe works equally well in a slow cooker, Instant Pot, or in a dutch oven on the stove. I've never tried it at pressure an instant pot, but on the slow cook setting with the lid slightly open it should work exactly the same as a slow cooker. The photos are shot in a dutch oven because #aesthetics.

Cooking time

Last note: I tasted this at 2 hours, 3 hours, and 3.5 hours. At 2 hours it's super bright and floral, you can really taste the chile, and the pork is still a little chewy in a wonderful way. By 3.5 hours the flavors are more melded together, the chile is more mild, and the pork is not quite fall apart tender but super soft. I liked both and I gave the win to 3.5 hours, but you should taste it at 2 and see if you like it, because who doesn't love to eat a little earlier? It makes room for second dinner.

My love affair with New Mexico

From a food perspective, and from a life perspective, New Mexico is by far and away my favorite state. I love the authentic friendliness of the people, the amazing food, and the beautiful geography. I think it's the prettiest state with the most to offer. We've spent a lot of time in New Mexico:

• We went skiing at Taos Ski Valley
• Searched for the best Green Chile Cheeseburger in New Mexico
• Camped in a vintage trailer
• and we didn't talk about it on the blog but we camped overnight at White Sands:

We have a lot of other New Mexico recipes as well:

• Air Fryer Chicken Tacos inspired by el parasol
• Oven Baked Carne Adovada Pork Taco better than al pastor for me
• All the Best Hatch Chile Recipes to Make Right Now since it's Hatch season and
• Green Chile Cheeseburger of course

I hope you give some of these a try and maybe a visit too. -Mike

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Creamiest Pepperiest Cacio e Pepe Pasta

July 22, 2026 • 8 comments • Posted in: cacio e pepe, garganelli, italian, italian american, pasta, quarantine cooking

Cacio e pepe is classic: peppery cheesy noodle goodness. You don’t mess with classic, am I right? Well, the other day I saw some noodles on insta and I was immediately drawn in. They were super saucy, extra cheesy, and looked so cravable. It was a twist on cacio e pepe - instead of the starchy pasta water, pecorino, pepper, and pasta route, it went for a pecorino mornay sauce flecked with pepper.

The best cacio e pepe

I’m a huge fan of cacio e pepe in all its forms and its simplicity but sometimes we get messages from people who have problems with cheese clumping up or sauce that isn’t as smooth, glossy, or thick as they like. This cacio e pepe-ish pasta is here to save the day. Because the sauce is thickened with flour and thinned out with starchy pasta water, it has more body and clinging power than the classic sauce.

Here’s how to make it

First, start off by melting some butter in a pan with plenty of freshly cracked black pepper. Black pepper is a key flavor in cacio e pepe and toasting it in butter helps coax out it’s spicy floralness. The heat of the butter will draw out flavor and the pepper will infuse the butter with all that goodness.

What is Mornay sauce

Mornay sauce, for the uninitiated, is a classic French sauce built off of béchamel, a flour thickened milk sauce. Traditional mornay is made with gruyère cheese but this one uses pecorino, which is the cheese normally used for cacio e pepe. You can use parmesan if that’s what you have but if you see pecorino at the store, it’s worth a buy. It’s slightly sharper, more intense, and less nutty than parmesan because it’s made with sheep’s milk instead of cow. It really makes cacio e pepe amazing and if you’re looking for the same flavor cacio as the ones you get in an Italian restaurant, the cheese is the answer.

Thicken the sauce

Next, it’s time to add our thickening agent, flour. Stir the flour in completely making sure there are no lumps. At this point, our goal is to coat eat flour granule with fat so that the flour easily combines with the milk to create a smooth sauce.

Lump-free cacio e pepe

It's time to gradually add the milk. Adding it in slowly will help prevent lumps. Don’t worry if the sauce clumps up right away, just keep whisking over low heat.

Glorious glorious cheese

Take the sauce off the heat and add the cheese in batches. The residual heat of the sauce will melt the cheese. The sauce will probably look kind of lumpy. Don’t worry though, we’re going to smooth it out with starchy pasta water. At this point, if you want to cool down the sauce and pop it in the fridge in a container, you can do so. If you do, you can have almost instant pasta any day of the week. When you’re ready to make your pasta, cook the pasta according to the instructions. Heat up the cacio sauce over medium heat, and whisk in some hot starchy pasta water until the sauce thins out slightly. Add the pasta and toss, adding extra pasta water if sauce is too thick. Finish everything off with extra cheese and pepper and enjoy!

What is this pasta shape?

The pasta in these photos is homemade fresh egg garganelli. I have a whole post on how to make it here.

• Creamy Chicken Alfredo
• Sour Cream and Onion Pasta
• Creamy Spinach Chicken Pot Pie Pasta
• Garlic Lobster Pasta
• Instant Pot Pasta and Meatballs
• Homemade SpaghettiOs with Mini Meatballs
• Bolognese of course!

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Air Fryer Char Siu Recipe

July 20, 2026 • 10 comments • Posted in: air fryer, char siu, chinese, chinese bbq

The only thing better than a simple plate of rice and char siu is your very own homemade air fryer char siu. This was so, so good and way easier than you'd expect. Chinese BBQ is a weird and wonderful thing. Like with European community bread ovens, its origins come from ancient times when Chinese villages could only support one central oven capable of making slow roasted meats. There would be one BBQ master, and in their window would hang whole pork carcasses, ducks, and always, sweet, smoky char siu.

The easiest way to make char siu at home

Making char siu at home isn’t hard, and there are lots of recipes online, but most of these recipes are oven-based and complicated. I think using an air fryer is a million times better. It heats up faster; the air circulation gets you a better char; and the inside is perfectly cooked in a tenth of the time.

What is char siu

Char siu, if you've never had it, is Chinese BBQ pork. It's a little bit sweet, smoky, and tender yet firm. You'll often see small bits of it in restaurant fried rice, but if it's done right, it's better served up in thick slices over plain rice and some wok fried vegetables.

How to make air fryer char siu

1. Cube the pork. Because we're doing this in an air fryer, surface area is your friend. Plus, more char equals more flavor.
2. Make the marinade. Just 5 ingredients, plus a couple of optional.
3. Marinate overnight. You can go as short as 30 mins but longer is better.
4. Air fry to perfection: 8 mins at 375º is what I did.
5. Enjoy on fluffy white rice with some fresh greens, or use in a recipe of your choice (more below).

Is this better than baked?

This recipe builds on our standard char siu recipe, but replaces the oven with an air fryer, and honestly, I’ll probably never go back to a conventional oven again, unless I somehow have a need for a giant batch. Hey, it could happen. I also replaced the standard pork shoulder with a 1.5" thick cut, well-marbled pork chop. It was way easier to find at the store than a pork shoulder. Moreover, it comes out juicy, sweet, and delicious, the way Chinese BBQ should be. Like Steph with her baking, sometimes small batch is the way to go, although for how delicious this is, you might want to save the marinade and do an easy second or third batch. It’ll go quick.

What to do with char siu

• Chinese BBQ Pork Buns
• Yang Chow Fried Rice

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Easy Viral Salt Bread Recipe

July 18, 2026 • 3 comments • Posted in: bread, Japanese, korean, tiktok, viral

Crispy, soft, pillowy, and bursting with butter, these Korean salt bread rolls are the best rolls you’ll ever make. Do you ever just want a small amount of bread and are too lazy to go to the bakery to get it? Do you want to try making bread for the first time? If so, salt bread is for you. I’m obsessed with salt bread. When I see it, I want it. Salt bread that’s just out of the oven is amazing and if you’ve ever wandered past a salt bread bakery and seen a line up of eager bread lovers, I hope you joined it. You’ll never forget your first salt bread. The crispy crust, the soft and tender insides, the little melted pool of butter waiting for you like a secret. I know it sounds like hyperbole, but it really is just that good.

The trend is real

Salt bread is one of those things where once you’ve had one roll, you immediately want another. Coming out of Korea, via Japan, salt bread, or sogeum-ppang, is a super popular bakery bread roll that showcases the simple flavors of butter and salt.

What is salt bread?

The name is deceptively simple and descriptive. Salt bread is literally bread. With salt. Don’t discount its deliciousness though. The addictiveness of salt bread lies in the textural contrast: crunchy, crispy butter-fried bottoms with soft, light, pillowy tops. The centers tend to be hollow with a surprise pool of butter waiting for you. Essentially, salt bread is a crescent roll, if crescent rolls were actually good. The basic recipe for salt bread is a milk bread dough, cut into individual portions, rolled up around a frozen baton of butter. When the bread bakes, the butter melts and pools, creating a pool of butter for the bottom of bun.

Where is salt bread from?

The consensus on the origin of salt bread is that it’s a Korean take on the underrated Japanese shio-pan: a salty, buttery bun. Most people now tend to think of salt bread as an “Asian” bread, one that you can find at Asian bakeries like 85°C or dedicated salt bread bakeries. Thanks to the internet, even a humble bun can be viral and that’s where we are now, with people lining up in timed intervals for freshly baked salt bread in Seoul.

How to make salt bread

Now that you’re convinced, let’s make salt bread! If you’ve made bread before, you’ll find this relatively easy. You start out with a regular milk bread dough, then divide it and shape each piece into an extra-long tapered triangle. The essential step is adding a small rectangle of butter on the wide end of the dough and roll it up like a croissant. As the bread bakes, the butter melts slowly while the crust firms up, becoming thin and crisp.

Salt bread ingredients

• flour - bread flour is your friend and if you’re going to endeavor to make salt bread, do yourself a favor and get the bread flour. The difference between all-purpose and bread flour lies in the protein percentage. Bread flour has higher protein which allows it to develop more gluten, leading to a better network of elasticity. More gluten equals more chew and rise, which is what we want in bread.
• water and milk - all bread needs liquid and here we’re going for a mix of water and milk. You can go with all water if you don’t have milk, but the milk adds a nice delicate milky fragrance. If you love shokupan or other Asian breads, it’s probably because it’s milk bread.
• egg - the egg in the dough makes this an enriched dough, giving the salt bread more flavor as well as helping it bake up golden brown.
• yeast - all bread needs yeast! No special yeast needed here, just go for instant. If you have active dry, that’s okay too, it just might take longer for your bread to rise. We’re using instant yeast because its smaller granules means we don’t need to activate it in liquid and can just add it directly to the flour mix.
• sugar - a bit of sugar adds sweetness and helps with browning.
• butter - it wouldn’t be salt bread without butter. We’re doing two additions of butter, once in the dough so it stays soft and rich, and once when we shape the salt bread so we get that hollow centre. You’ll need softened butter and a straight from the fridge butter block. For the encased butter in the salt bread, you need to cut the butter into little rectangular batons about 3 inches by 1/2 inch and freeze them.
• salt - duh! Regular fine sea salt in the dough and a sprinkle of flaky salt on top to finish.

Step by step salt bread

Most bread recipes have you mix together all the dry ingredients, then mix in the wet ones, but after a bunch of experimenting, I’ve found that adding all the liquid ingredients to the bottom of your bowl, then putting the dry ingredients on top makes for a more even mix, especially when you’re using a stand mixer. By layering the dry ingredients on the wet, you don’t have to scrape the bowl down as much and you don’t end up with any dry bits at the bottom of the bowl. It’s my all time favorite trick for bread making! Here is the step by step:

1. Add

To the bowl of your stand mixer, add in this order: water, milk, egg, yeast, sugar, butter, flour, and salt.

2. Knead

Mix on low for 5 minutes with the dough hook, then turn up to medium and knead for 15 minutes minimum. You want to knead until you reach the windowpane stage: take a bit of dough in your hand and stretch it out, if you can stretch it out thin without it breaking, you’re good to go.

3. Proof

Gather all the dough into a ball and let it take a nap and puff up.

4. Cut

While the dough is sleeping, take a block of cold butter and cut it into little rectangles about 3 inches in length by 1/2 inch in height and width. Place the rectangles on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and pop them into the freezer to firm up.

5. Shape and proof again

When the dough has tripled, punch it down and divide it into 9 equal portions. Shape each portion into a 6 inch long teardrop/tadpole shape then cover and let rise for another 30 minutes. Once the 30 minutes is up, take a portion of dough and on a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll it out: you want a super long triangle that’s about 3 inches at the base and 1.5 feet in length. Take a rectangle of frozen butter and place it at the base. Tuck in the sides and then roll the butter up from the base to the tip. Place the shaped salt bread on a lined baking sheet, cover and shape the rest of the buns. Cover the salt breads and let them rise again until doubled, about 90 minutes.

6. Bake

When the buns are puffy and tall, use a spray bottle to spray them with water then sprinkle on some salt. Bake until golden and delicious then remove from the oven. Once you take them out, use a pastry brush and some of the butter that’s pooled on the tray to brush the tops to make them nice and shiny. Cool slightly on a wire rack and enjoy!

Other breads you can make if you loved this

• Japanese Milk Bread
• Cheesy Earthquake Bread Recipe
• Japanese Fruit Sandwich: Strawberry Sando Recipe

That’s it!

Whew, I admit, this was a journey, what with three proofs and all, but it’s really worth it, I promise! Just take a day or afternoon to yourself, turn on some binge worthy show in the background and make some bread. It’s so wholesome and homey. I hope salt bread makes it to your table this holiday season. It truly is the BEST bread roll you can make and would be such an elite move as your bread course at any dinner. Happy baking! -xoxo steph

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