Excellent red chile sauce! I use it in many recipes. Very happy to have found The Hatch Chile Store for their variety of Hatch chile products. Highly recommended A++Shaun D · Verified
🌶️ Sun-dried Sandia from our family farm✓ 100% Certified Hatch chile📦 Ships shelf-stable from NM📦 Buy more, save up to 30%★ 4.7 · 33,800+ verified reviews
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Why 500,000+ Customers Keep Coming Back
Excellent product, very pleased. I live in CA and have a hard time finding stores, markets and vendors that provide good quality red chile pods. I do travel back to my home state of NM whenever I get the chance but do run out of my hatch products. I very much appreciate and recommend The Hatch Chile Store for their variety and quality of their Hatch chile products and their excellent packaging and shipping care. A++Shaun D · Verified
I ordered my Ristra after visiting Sante Fe NM. They are everywhere as decorations but hard to find to buy. The Ristras that I'd seen looked a lot different than the one I received from Hatch Chilli. I was surprised how plump and full and rich in color. I had it treated so not edible. I placed it where the morning sun hits it. 😊Marie S · Verified
I moved from New Mexico to Alabama and had to make myself feel as if I was still in Santa Fe. This was the one thing that could fit in that space to make it work! I also bought their great green chilies which my wife and I really miss...Melvin C · Verified
These Barker pods were FIRST CLASS. They were very tasty and also very clean as packed. My wife grew up, as a child, in Arrey (near your packing facility - maiden name of Enriquez) and her family raised red chile during her childhood. She was wall-to-wall smiles when she made her usual stack of "stacked" enchiladas as she said that this taste brought back her childhood. We are sold on your product. Thank you.John C · Verified
A wonderful selection of ristras were shipped. I order every year and they last for close to a year where I live. Great for the Christmas holidays. Thank you!Ken R · Verified
So beautiful and filled with chilies - a bit of Southwestern magic in the Blue Ridge Mountains.Ellen S · Verified
The Chile Pequin Cross is stunning! I have ristras and this both adds to my decor and reminds me where I grew up. Fantastic craftsmanship- I’ll be back surely!!Colin D · Verified
Beautiful, colorful, fresh, and delicious! I’m enjoying my Ristra even as a new addition for my decor. Although I found that they are delicate as the peppers dry, and will drop seeds. No problem, I now have my Ristra as not only my decor in my kitchen, but a nice place to gather the fallen seeds and some of the Chile’s as they fall onto my counter top. Most excellent!!Debra S · Verified
It is absolutely beautiful, fragrant, and the perfect gift for my parents.Jaclyn S · Verified
I like to make my own enchilada sauce with NO tomato. These chiles are so smoky and toasty. Just what I like!Sherry T · Verified
The Red Chile Powder has a nice spice flavor without the extreme heat. This is my Go-To for dried bean flavoring. E joy!William E · Verified
Hi, the sauce has great flavor and the right heat. Very Happy with the product and the frozen green Chile is so good.Ike M · Verified
I love your spices, all of them.PAULA F · Verified
I love all your spices. I went from McCormick to yours after trying them. Keep up the good work.PAULA F · Verified
Nice size pods. Making enchilada sauce.Sherry T · Verified
This red chili sauce is excellent. I pour it on scrambled eggs at breakfast, on tortillas at lunch and over hash at supper. Basically, can use it on so many foods. It enhances flavors and adds to the taste.Carolyn C · Verified
They made it very well. Just add a little cumin and garlic powder salt and it’s out of this world!Kathy K · Verified
This isn't my first time to order this product & quality is consistantDaryl N · Verified
Best red chili sauce !! Great enchiladas with it !!Big J · Verified
These chiles are amazing. They were exactly what we needed for a recipe from America's Test Kitchen. The depth of flavor and quality exceeded expectations.Jeff S · Verified
It's The best flavor! Its quick for vamping up anything you make. Good Job 👍Josie J · Verified
Excellent quality. Arrived well packaged. I used some of them to make enchiladas sauce and it was so flavorful..Angelete S · Verified
This spice blend is very good and flavorful. It's just what I wanted to season bacon and make dips.Donna S · Verified
Excellent Not that hot.Steven T · Verified
Great, yummy, delicious,and the best there is!!!Michael J · Verified
I have found the mild red chile sauce to be the perfect sauce for Chile Colorado. I always laugh that black pepper is too spicy for my wife but this Hatch Red Chile Sauce at the mild level is excellent for her. Cube and sear some beef then slow cook it with Hatch Red Chile and everyone will think your a master chef LOLMichael N · Verified
The pods are so fresh and delicious. The Hatch Chile Store absolutely has the best New Mexico Chiles. World's best, just like on our license plates!Freida R · Verified
I just wish the chili labeled “Hot” was hot. It more like mild. I love Hatch chili 🌶️ so I will keep eating it.Diane T · Verified
Your service and the quality of chiles were very good. However after I ordered I found the same brand at my local supermarket for one third of your price. Unfortunately it doesn’t make sense for me to order them again from you. I appreciate your time though.Joshua B · Verified
The flavor was great! I was worried that the Hot might be too hot, but I actually wished it had a bit more kick. I’ll still buy more.Gary K · Verified
The chili i get from. Chili store is always good and fresh. I recommended to everybody red and greenTerry D · Verified
Smooth rich flavor with a kick!!Lee A · Verified
Most of the chilies were in good shape, acceptably fresh/pliable. I would purchase again.Jacalyn H · Verified
This was the first time I tried your hot sauce. OMG it was really tasty. The right amount of ingredients and mixture hit a high 9 for me. I used it on a plate of roasted chicken the first night. It was wonderful. I recommend you buy it. It was worth the wait . ThanksErnesto R · Verified
These ristras are well made and beautiful. We enjoy them hanging in our kitchen window. The ristras were packed well and arrived in great condition.Rebecca G · Verified
Great chile powder! Yes, I sampled right outa the bottle---straight up! I used it in a Texas-style chili, along with the Red Chile powder. The combo is delicious! I lived in Las Cruces, once upon a time, and absolutely love New Mexico cuisine. It is really nice to be able to get the actual ingredients for NM-style cooking. This is a combo review since I got the Red powder too. Both are awesome.DAVID V · Verified
This new ristra replaced an old sad looking one. It's a beautiful addition outside my front door.DAVID V · Verified
This is quite possibly the most beautiful ristra I have ever seen. Each pod, so red and vibrant, and the coating was masterfully done to preserve it for longer. It’s full, vibrant, and brings so much life into the room. Thank you.Larae M · Verified
My old tamale supplier went out of business so I was looking around and found these. Familiar with Hatch products so I though it was worth a try. packaging was excellent and they communicated well about shipping. The tamales were very good and now I have a new tamale supplier.Curtis W · Verified
What Is Hatch Red Chile?
Every red chile we sell started as a green one. Leave a Hatch green chile on the plant another three to four weeks and it ripens to a deep crimson, trading the bright, vegetal bite of green for something earthier — sweeter, smokier, with more depth and a slower burn. Same pepper, same field, completely different ingredient. In New Mexico the two aren’t rivals so much as seasons of the same crop, and most families cook with both.
Red chile is the backbone of the state’s oldest dishes: carne adovada braised until the pork falls apart, red enchilada sauce blended from whole pods, posole simmered on feast days. If green chile is New Mexico’s summer, red is its winter — the string of ristras drying on the porch was the original pantry. Curious about the tradition itself? Read our page on the New Mexico red chile tradition, then come back and pick your format.
Every Form of Hatch Red Chile We Sell
Fresh Red (a short window in fall)
Fresh Hatch red chile — “wet red” in valley shorthand — is the ripe pod picked before drying, available for a few weeks at the end of harvest. It roasts like green but eats richer. Blink and it’s gone until next year.
Dried Pods (the traditional way)
Whole dried Hatch red chile pods are how New Mexico has stored red chile for generations. Toast, soak, and blend them into a sauce that makes canned “enchilada sauce” taste like a rumor. One bag of pods makes several batches, and they keep in the pantry for a year or more.
Powder, Blends & Ready-Made
Hatch red chile powder is pure ground pods — no salt, no filler — for rubs, stews, and weeknight red sauce. The red chile spice blend and red & green blend cover seasoning duty, and sun-dried red chile sauce is the shortcut: pod-true flavor from a jar. There’s also roasted Hatch red chile, flame-roasted and frozen like our green best seller.
Ristras & Wreaths
The drying string itself. Hatch chile ristras and wreaths are hand-tied in the valley from real red pods — décor first, but a working pantry in the old tradition.
“Red or Green?” — The Official State Question
New Mexico is the only state with an official state question, adopted in 1996, and this is it. Order enchiladas anywhere in the state and you’ll be asked. Answer “red” and you get the deep, earthy sauce made from ripened pods; “green” gets you the brighter roasted chile; “Christmas” gets you both, and nobody will judge you for it. We wrote up the whole debate — history, flavor science, and which dishes want which color — in Red or Green?
The practical version: red carries slow-cooked meats, enchilada stacks, and posole; green wins on burgers, stews, eggs, and anything cheesy. Most serious kitchens keep both — if yours is missing the green half, shop Hatch green chile too.
Red Chile, Chile Colorado, Red Chili Sauce — What’s the Difference?
The words get tangled, so here’s the map. New Mexico red chile (what you’re looking at) is sauce or seasoning made from ripened, dried New Mexican pods — in our case, grown in the Hatch Valley. Chile colorado is the northern-Mexican cousin: beef braised in a red sauce that’s often built on guajillo and ancho. Same idea, different pods, different accent. Our pods make an outstanding colorado if that’s the dish you’re after.
“Red chili sauce” with an “i” usually means the Tex-Mex or canned version — tomato-thickened, cumin-forward, mild. Traditional New Mexico red contains no tomato at all: pods, garlic, oregano, salt, water. That purity is why the pod quality is the whole game, and why cooks who switch to real Hatch pods don’t switch back. (We have opinions about the spelling too — see chile vs. chili, settled.)
One more: paprika and “chili powder” blends are seasoned mixes — salt, cumin, sometimes flour. Our red chile powder is 100% ground Hatch pods, nothing else, which is why a tablespoon of it does what a whole packet of chili seasoning can’t.
Cooking with Hatch Red Chile
Red Chile Sauce from Pods
The foundational recipe: toast a dozen pods in a dry skillet until fragrant, soak in hot water twenty minutes, then blend with garlic, oregano, a little of the soaking liquid, and salt. Simmer fifteen minutes and you have the sauce behind every great plate of red chile enchiladas. Powder gets you 90% of the way in a quarter of the time.
Carne Adovada
New Mexico’s answer to barbecue: pork shoulder marinated and braised in red chile until it shreds. Our carne adovada recipe is the one we make at home — pods or powder both work.
Posole, Stews & Beyond
Red chile is the traditional heat in posole, the feast-day hominy stew — we sell the posole corn and seasoning too. Past the classics, red powder earns its shelf space in chili, barbecue rubs, chocolate desserts, and anywhere smoked paprika is trying too hard. Hundreds more ideas live in our recipe collection.
From Harvest to Ristra: How Red Chile Is Made
Red chile is patience. The pods that become our reds stay on the plant weeks past the green harvest, ripening through September and October while the valley’s hot days and cool nights concentrate their sugars. Some are picked fresh and sold as wet red; most are dried — strung into ristras or laid out in the desert air — then cleaned, sorted, and either bagged whole or stone-ground into powder. Nothing added at any step.
Our family — the Franzoys — has farmed this valley since 1917, five generations of red Octobers. When you buy red chile here you’re buying from the people who grew it, in the only valley that can rightfully call it Hatch. That’s the difference between our pods and the anonymous “New Mexico chile” bins at the import market: provenance you can trace to a field.
How to Buy and Store Red Chile
How Much to Order
A pound of dried pods blends into roughly 8–10 cups of finished sauce — enough for several trays of enchiladas and a pot of adovada. Regular red-chile cooks go through two to three pounds of pods or a large jar of powder per season. If you’re new, start with one bag of pods and one powder: pods for weekends, powder for weeknights.
Keeping It Fresh
Whole pods keep 12+ months in an airtight container away from light — the freezer stretches that further and locks in color. Powder holds peak flavor for about a year; you’ll smell the difference when it fades. Finished red sauce freezes beautifully in flat bags or ice-cube trays, so make a double batch and bank the rest. Full storage notes for every format live in our prep instructions.
If It Isn’t Right
Every order ships with the same guarantee as our green: report ordinary transit damage within 24 hours, damage, spoilage or a warm arrival with fresh chile or frozen food within 4 hours, with photos of the box and the affected items, or other quality issues within 7 days. Fresh chile normally arrives at outdoor temperature. We resolve affected items regardless of shipping speed or Shipping Protection; please send photos of the box and affected items with your claim. Farm-direct means the buck stops with the family that grew it.
Why buy from us:
- Direct from our family farm. Preston, our family, and our crew grow, roast, and pack everything you order, from a working chile farm in Hatch, New Mexico, not a re-seller's warehouse.
- 5+ generations in the Hatch Valley. Founded by Preston Mitchell, a direct descendant of Joseph Franzoy, the first commercial chile farmer in Hatch.
- Certified Hatch Valley grown. Member of the Hatch Chile Association, which administers the certification mark that defends "Hatch chile" against generic poblano substitution.
- 30,000+ verified-buyer reviews, averaging 4.7/5 stars across our catalog.
- Frozen ships on dry ice. Nationwide. We ship Monday through Wednesday only so nothing sits in a weekend warehouse.
- 30-day satisfaction guarantee.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Hatch red chile?
Hatch red chile is Hatch green chile that has been left to ripen fully on the plant. As it ripens from green to red, the flavor deepens — earthier, richer, and a little sweet — while the fresh, vegetal notes of green chile mellow. It's the backbone of New Mexican red chile sauce, carne adovada, and enchiladas.
What is the difference between Hatch red and green chile?
They are the same chile at different stages of ripeness — red chile is Hatch green chile left on the plant another three to four weeks until it ripens. Green is picked young, with a bright, roasted, vegetable-forward flavor. Red is the mature, vine-ripened version — deeper, earthier, smokier, and a little sweet. Same field, same variety, different season. New Mexicans use green for stews and smothering, red for sauces, carne adovada, and enchiladas.
How hot is Hatch red chile?
Roughly the same Scoville range as the green variety it came from — ripening changes flavor more than heat. Dried pods and powder can taste slightly hotter because drying concentrates the pod. Ours run medium: present, but built for flavor first.
How do I make red chile sauce from dried pods?
Toast 10–12 pods in a dry skillet until fragrant (30–60 seconds a side), stem and seed them, soak in hot water for 20 minutes, then blend with garlic, a pinch of oregano, salt, and enough soaking liquid to make a smooth sauce. Simmer 15 minutes. That’s the base for enchiladas, carne adovada, and huevos rancheros.
What’s the difference between Hatch red chile and ancho or guajillo?
Ancho (dried poblano) is raisiny and mild; guajillo is tangy and thin-fleshed. Hatch red pods are brighter and earthier with a cleaner burn, and they make a smoother sauce — New Mexico red chile is its own tradition, not a substitute for Mexican dried chiles (or vice versa).
Can I buy fresh Hatch red chile year-round?
No — fresh (“wet”) red is only available for a few weeks at the tail of harvest, usually late September into October. The rest of the year, dried pods, powder, jarred sauce, and roasted frozen red chile carry the flavor.
Are ristras edible?
Traditionally yes — a ristra was the family’s dried-chile supply. Ours are hand-tied from real dried pods (Sandia ristras from Hatch red chile; pequin ristras, wreaths and crosses from chile pequin) and ship untreated unless you ask for a clear coating, so you can pull pods off and cook with them. If you want pods for cooking in quantity, the bagged dried red chile pods are the better buy; if you want the porch to smell like New Mexico, buy the ristra.
Hatch Red Chile Quick Reference
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What it is | Hatch green chile, vine-ripened red and (usually) dried |
| Flavor vs. green | Earthier, sweeter, smokier; slower, rounder heat |
| Fresh season | A few weeks, late September–October |
| Year-round forms | Dried pods, powder, blends, jarred sauce, roasted frozen |
| Signature dishes | Carne adovada, red enchiladas, posole |
| Shipping | All 50 states, direct from the valley |
Keep Exploring
The New Mexico red chile tradition · Red or green? · Hatch chile recipes · Ristras & wreaths · Shop Hatch green chile