Green Chile Cheese Ball - Recipe

Hatch Chile/Green Chile Cheese Ball

I do not like a recipe that expects you to stick around for a story but I understand that is how recipe sites make revenue. I'm not here to make a buck so on with the recipe:

2-3 cups of cream cheese (16-24oz or 2-3 standard packages)

1-4 sprigs of green onion (add to your taste preference)

4 medium sized green chiles. 

• For a spicier cheese ball use serranos

• For a medium spicy cheese ball use jalapenos

• For a result like I got, use very spicy Hatch green chiles. This will be somewhat spicer than jalapenos but not as spicy as serranos

• If you don't want as much heat, use a few less chiles. 

1/2 cup of a very sharp cheddar (preferably orange for the color)

1/2 Tbsp of garlic powder

1 Tsp of salt

*Optional: 1/3 cup of heavy cream

*Optional: crispy bacon topping

Soften the cream cheese by leaving it out of the fridge for 30-45 minutes. This may vary depending on how warm your kitchen is at the time.

While the cream cheese softens prepare the onions and the chiles. I used fire-roasted hatch chiles I bought from the local grocer but I've also used Serrano's and Jalapenos in the past. In order to prep the chiles you'll want to place them in an air fryer or on a lightly oiled pan and cook them until the blister. This can be a various amount of time depending on how black you'd like to get the skin of the pepper. 

Be certain the kitchen is well vented if the peppers are spicy, this can spice up the air and, if you're not used to the spice, you may get a fit of coughing. I also suggest using latex gloves to cook and slice the peppers.

Once the pepper has blistered on all sides put the pepper(s) in a bowl and cover with a tight wrap or lid. The pepper will steam and after a short wait for it to cool off the skin should easily come off of the pepper. The fire-roasted chiles from the grocer allowed me to skip the cooking and steaming step and all I had to do was to peel off the skins and rinse the outsides. For all of the peppers you will need to gently slice into the pepper on one half so that you can remove the stem and seeds. You can then lay out the pepper flat and chop them into small chunks similar to how you would mince a garlic. Depending on how big you want your pepper bits you can adjust the mince.

Clean the green onion and remove the root. Slice the green onion into small slices about the width of a US Quarter. Leave the Scallions in the typical scallion fashion you prefer or about a centimeter if you haven't a preference.

Set the pepper and the onion aside in a bowl. Sprinkle the salt on the pepper and onion and mix it together until it is well incorporated. There may be some water that is extracted, this is from the salt and is fine to include in the finished product. 

Prepare the cheese.

Grate or obtain grated sharp cheddar cheese and set aside.

To get more volume out of the cream cheese I took the optional step of adding a 1/3 cup of heavy cream and whipped it until it had stiff peaks. I then incorporated the softened cream cheese with a hand blender. A standing mixer with a paddle will also work for the purpose of adding air to the cheese and giving it a whipped texture. Once the cheese is airy and whipped you'll want to move to adding the ingredients together.

Add in the garlic powder, the cheddar cheese, the peppers and green onion and mix again until well incorporated. 

Place the cheese into a storage container to chill in the refrigerator. Once the cheese ball is chilled you can serve it up in a ball via a ladle or an extra large ice cream scoop.

The final optional step is to add some chopped and crispy bacon to the top of the cheese ball before serving. Best of luck and feel free to ask any questions, make any adjustments, and enjoy.