A lively potato dish that’s easy to prepare with a high return on flavor. Roasted Poblano peppers stuffed with spicy mashed potatoes equals pure excitement.
Sometimes the tastiest food isn’t always the prettiest. But there’s something about the flavor and the aroma of a blackened and shriveled up roasted poblano pepper that makes me want to consume Mexican food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Tis the season. The chile roasters have fired up their propane and the smell of the Southwest is starting to fill the air here in Denver. So begins the endless parade of chile soups, chile quiches, chile burgers and chile scrambled eggs. Rejoice! How about a mashed potato stuffed poblano chile pepper?
We made this easy poblano and potato side dish at Culinary School and I couldn’t wait to recreate it at home.
Poblano peppers are roasted stove top until black and blistered and then stuffed with a mashed potato mixture of tangy goat cheese, salsa with a Chinese hot sauce blended in. XO Sauce to be exact.
XO sauce is a spicy, crunchy mix of dried scallops, shrimp, and chiles along with cured ham, oil, and seasonings that many Chinese cooks adore. It’s labor intensive, plus you need ingredients such as dried shrimp, dried scallops and a special pork, Jinhua ham.
Some say it’s the greatest sauce on the planet, bringing out the best in any dish it comes in contact with.
Not having a single item in my pantry to make this sauce, I opted to make these potatoes with a big spoonful of Sambal Oelek. It seemed to work just fine, since one of the recipients of this dish referred to them as “life changing”.
The final flavor result for this mashed potato side dish, is earthy, Southwestern, savory, spicy and tangy creamy thanks to the goat cheese. Let’s take a look:
More Stuffed Pepper Recipes:
- Chile Poblano with Pumpkin Mole
- Picadillo Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers
- Spinach and Sausage Stuffed Italian Sweet Frying Peppers
- Chicken Chiles Rellenos in Tomato Cream Sauce
And if you love Mexican food as much as we do, don’t miss my Mexican Food Category. You’ll find lots of fabulous recipe to spice up your meal plans. Including the most popular Mexican food recipe on my site for Hatch Green Chili with Pork.
Roasted Poblano Peppers Stuffed with Spicy Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 6 medium Russet Potatoes baked
- 4 ounce Log of Goat Cheese room temperature
- 1/2 cup Mexican Salsa mild or medium
- 1 Tablespoon Sambal Oelek
- Salt and Pepper to Taste
- 3 Tablespoons Butter divided into 6 chunks
Instructions
- Wrap the potatoes in foil and bake at 350 degrees until tender. While they’re still hot, pass the potatoes through a potato ricer. Or mash with a potato masher until fine.
- In the meantime, roast poblanos over open flame on your gas stove top. One by one, simply place the poblanos directly on the grates turning them often to get the black and blistered.
- When the poblanos are cool enough to handle, make a slit down the center of each pepper. Remove some of the seeds and a little bit of the veins if you’d like. This will make the peppers less spicy with heat. I don’t remove much of the blackened skin, because this is where the smoky flavor lies. If you must remove skin, do so with your hands. Don’t rinse the peppers under water. You’re rinsing away flavor.
- When the potatoes are at room temperature. Mix in the goat cheese. With clean hands, mix well.
- Add the salsa and the Sambal Oelek. Mix well. Taste and adjust for flavor. Add Salt and Pepper to taste.
- With a spoon, stuff each poblano with a good amount of the potato mixture. Place each stuffed pepper on a sheet pan. Place a pat of butter on top of the mashed potatoes.
- Bake 350 degrees for 30 minutes. If you’d like them browned, finish them under the broiler for just a minute.
Nutrition
Spicy Mashed Potato Stuffed Roasted Poblano Peppers …They’re what’s for Dinner.
Hi Lea Ann,
These look delicious and so impressive! Any advice on how to make them ahead of time and reheat when serving dinner to quests?
Also why do you roast potatoes instead of boiling them?
Thank you!
Good Morning Becky and thanks for your note.
If I were going to make these ahead, I’d cook and assemble and them keep them in a crockpot on warm setting.
I’m not sure making them a day ahead would work well. They’re dense in nature and would be hard to re-heat. You could try bringing them to room temperature and then placing them in a 170 degree oven for about 30 minutes. But I’m afraid the pepper texture would be compromised.
RE: baking potatoes. It’s just an easy hands off way to cook potatoes for mashing, Rather than the boiling method. Plus, once they’re baked, the skins come off easily. Easier than peeling them before boiling. It really has nothing to do with flavor.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Did you forget to peel the charred skin off?
Actually no. I like to leave a little of the charred skin on for flavor. But it does look like I left a little bit too much on. 🙂
Love fresh chile season! Roasted some Hatch chilies today. 🙂 Anyway, this looks like a fun — and tasty! — dish. Thanks!
I cannot imagine how delicious this dish was. I agree with Vickie—“Dying here.” I soooooo want to make some of these. I did roast green chilis today and froze some. No for the poblanos!
Dying here. ? Looks so amazing. Love the new sauce and now I’m on a mission.
These look delicious – just the ‘something different’ I was looking for . . . what type of protein would you recommend?
Never would have thought of stuffing a poblano with taters but it makes total since and looks delicious. Until you said it on Facebook recently, I did not realize you were in full time culinary school – wow. I’ll bet you are thoroughly enjoying it and learning a ton.
Lea Ann, oh my, do these ever look good! There’s just no reason at all I wouldn’t go completely overboard and eat just one too many!