Recipe: (Hopefully) Healthier Chile Rellenos

Image from wikipedia.

If you don't know what that is chile rellenos are ancho chiles or anaheim chiles stuffed with hamburger meat or cheese, dipped in batter and fried. While I love chile rellenos you can just imagine how many calories a hamburger filled, batter-dipped and fried chile relleno is. I love Chile Rellenos. Before last week I hadn't had one in years. If you make them traditionally chile rellenos take a long time to make because they are a lot of work. I decided the best way to make a filling healthy chile relleno was to make some modifications to a regular chile relleno recipe.

For this recipe I used:

4 ancho chiles or anaheim chiles

1/2 pound of ground turkey

2 diced tomatoes

1/4 white onion

1/2 cup diced white mushrooms

1 clove garlic

 mozzarella cheese

1 tbspn olive oil

toothpicks

Roasting the Chiles

1. Preheat your oven to 450.

2. Lay your washed and dried ancho chiles on aluminum foil in a cookie sheet.

3. Once your oven is preheated put your chiles in and set your oven timer to 10 minutes.

4. Every 10 minutes you are going to turn your chiles in order to evenly blacken the chiles.

5. Cook the chiles for 20-30 minutes. 

6. Once the chiles finish blackening turn the oven down to 350.

Making the Stuffing

1. Heat your nonstick pan to medium heat. 

2. Add the olive oil.

3. Once oil is heated cook the onion until it starts to turn transparent.

4. Add 1/2 pound turkey. At this point usually add about a tablespoon of chicken bouillon. Don't add a lot. It can get really salty really fast.

5. Add mushrooms.

6. Brown ground turkey.

7. Once turkey is cooked remove it from heat. 

Putting It Together

1. Once your chiles are blackened put them into a plastic bag to steam. Doing this will help your chiles peel easier.

2. Let your turkey stuffing cool so you can stuff the chiles.

3. Once your chiles have had time to cool remove them from the plastic bad and start peeling. Depending on the chiles you may want to wear gloves so you don't burn your hands. Mine didn't burn at all from peeling.

4. Lay your chiles on the cookie sheet again and cut a slit in the middle. 

5. Use a spoon to scrape out the seeds.

6. Stuff the cooked turkey into the chile. Top it off with the cheese.

7. Close the chiles with toothpicks. 

Finish the chiles by sticking them back into the oven and let the cheese melt for 5-10 minutes.

Finally, top off the finished chiles with fresh tomatoes, and serve with rice. 

Photo by me.