the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast 14 August: Green Chile Huevos Rancheros

After making the astoundingly tasty and stupid-easy New Mexico Inspired Roasted Green Chile Sauce I posted last week, my lovely wife and I did a bit of experimenting in the kitchen to see how we could incorporate the sauce into our summer rotation.

I have to admit, one of our favorite preps has ended up being these Green Chile Huevos Rancheros, which we’ve now had for breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner at various times during the past three weeks.

Like many of you, we’re big fans of a good huevos rancheros prep around our camp, and like many of you, we’ve eaten them in all sorts of configurations and with all sorts of ingredients thrown into the mix, and both “green” and “red” (with what some would argue is the more traditional red chile and tomato-based sauces).

And like many of you, we’ve learned to reach for some of the much better than just passable gluten-free tortilla subs available now; we’ve tried most of them and still find the Siete brand our favorite for taste and texture, even if they are a bit pricy. Hells bells, we’ll still make up a batch of these using a high quality, organic if possible, corn tortilla occasionally as well.

[An aside related to the comment above – training again at 61 for competitive track and field, also referred to by some as the geezer olympics, I find myself able to manage more carbs on the heaviest workout days than I’ve been able to tolerate over the past several years. This dish is a great “carb refeed day” treat when you need to refill glycogen stores or are just needing a bit more to make your day work…]

One of the great things about making huevos your way in your home kitchen is that you can build your huevos any way you want. These are so easy, and so intuitive to put together, what follows is really not even a formal recipe.

Most of the time, we’ll soften our Siete tortillas (or well-sourced corn tortillas) in a hot skillet with a splash of avocado oil or butter, then top with drained and spiced (typically heated with a bit of jalapeño or serrano pepper, minced garlic, cumin, and salt) organic black beans, soft-yolked fried eggs, and whatever sauce we’re using. My wife probably won’t be happy unless there’s some grated Monterrey Jack or cotija cheese on top, along with some fresh cilantro.

Don’t want to use a tortilla of any kind? Don’t, and just float the eggs in a puddle (or a bowl) of sauce. Think poached eggs are better? Go for it. This is a recipe that will let your creativity shine, and your allegiance to whatever huevos rancheros tradition you’ve built over the years to come through loud and proud.

Our catering guru buddy in Austin, Chef Libby, often adds a layer of crispy sweet potato chunks to hers, along with sautéed poblanos or Hatch chiles if she has fresh ones on hand (they’re in season now by the way). She also shared that when she occasionally makes these for a family meal for her catering team, she’ll thrown in some roasted or grilled chicken too…

The take home is that the sky is the limit in terms of ingredients, with the real flavor anchor being the sauce your using to tie everything together.

We’ll post a traditional red rancheros sauce at some point, but if you’ve not made a batch yet, you have to cook up a meal of these with the New Mexico Inspired Roasted Green Chile Sauce from last week, and dig around for fresh Hatch green chiles, they’re all over the DFW metro now, or order some right out of New Mexico here.

Enjoy.