Apple Green-Chile Pie With Cheddar Crust
Updated March 1, 2022

- Total Time
- 1½ hours
- Rating
- Comments
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Ingredients
- 1¼cups all-purpose flour
- ¼teaspoon salt
- ⅓cup cold unsalted butter, cut into dice
- ½cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese
- 5tablespoons ice water, more as needed
- 5cups peeled and thickly sliced tart apples, such as Jonagold, Honeycrisp or Granny Smith
- ½cup chopped roasted green Hatch chilies, mild or medium hot (see note)
- 2tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- ½cup granulated sugar
- ¼cup light brown sugar
- ½teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼teaspoon allspice
- ¼teaspoon nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
- ¼teaspoon salt
- ¼cup cornstarch
- ½cup all-purpose flour
- ½cup finely chopped walnuts
- ¼cup light brown sugar
- 4tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- Vanilla ice cream, for serving
For the Crust
For the Filling
For the Topping
Preparation
- Step 1
Make the crust: In a food processor or mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine flour and salt. Add butter one piece at a time, while pulsing or mixing at low speed, until mixture is fine and crumbly. Transfer to a large bowl and toss well with the cheese. Add ice water one tablespoon at a time, mixing lightly with fingers just until dough holds together. To test, pinch a small amount of dough. If it is crumbly, add more ice water. Form dough into a ball, wrap loosely in plastic, then roll into a disk. Refrigerate at least one hour, or up to 3 days, before rolling. (Dough can be frozen for up to a month.)
- Step 2
On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a circle at least 11 inches in diameter. Transfer to a 9-inch pie pan, preferably glass. Turn edges under to make a thick rim; flute rim by pinching into a zigzag pattern. Refrigerate until ready to bake, at least an hour.
- Step 3
Make the filling: In a large bowl, toss apples, green chilies and lemon juice together. In another bowl, mix dry ingredients and add to apples and chilies, tossing until thoroughly coated.
- Step 4
Make the topping: In a small bowl, mix flour, walnuts and brown sugar. Add melted butter and toss together until crumbly.
- Step 5
Bake the pie: Heat oven to 400 degrees. Using a slotted spoon, scoop filling into chilled crust, then drizzle with 2 tablespoons of juice from bottom of bowl. Sprinkle topping evenly over filling. Bake 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 degrees. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, or until filling bubbles at edge and crust is brown. Serve warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side.
- Roasted green Hatch chilies from New Mexico can be ordered from newmexicanconnection.com, and are sometimes found frozen in grocery stores. Drained canned green chilies are acceptable.
Private Notes
Comments
Living in New Mexico for 25+ years, I have had the pleasure over and over again to experiment with fresh green chili roasted at our local fruit stand. We put up nearly 175 pounds this year!
My point being, one can be very pleasantly surprised in the various ways green chili can be incorporated into your daily food preparations.
In addition to green chili, try adding some red Chimayo chili powder to the crust as this adds even more depth to Julia's recipe.
Any apple works!
Thank you!
This was absolutely fabulous! Made with authentic Hatch New Mexico chiles, the flavors are subtle and warm. My friends--native New Mexicans--raved about it.
". . . sliced tart apple such as . . . Honeycrisp . . . "
Honeycrisp is about as far as an apple gets from "tart". They are among the sweetest apples, thus the name: Honeycrisp. Granny Smiths are tart. The writer of the recipe needs to decide - tart or sweet?
I made this for a pie picnic, and people were fighting over the last slice. I'm not an experienced baker either, but it was so easy. I'm definitely keeping this one close for any dessert needs in the future.
Made a complete rookie mistake with this pie recipe: I didn’t macerate the apples before packing them into the crust and baking and ended up with a very dry filling. Fortunately, I could see this once I brought the pie out of the oven, and I had the time to reduce a good apple cider for a sauce and served it with ice cream. The sauce was a perfect foil as my fresh Hatch chilies were on the spicy side. All in all, a very remarkable apple pie.
I served this pie in celebration of pi day, and everyone said it was the best pie they'd ever had! I used oats instead of nuts in the crumble, and I served it with fresh whipped cream. There was lots of liquid left over from the filling, so we had lots to drizzle.