Sometime in late July, the parking lot at Central Market stops smelling like a parking lot. The roasters fire up — big black drum roasters that tumble the chiles over open flame — and the smoke carries across the lot and into the street and into the cars of people driving past who don’t even know what they’re smelling yet but slow down anyway. That’s how Hatch season announces itself in Dallas. You don’t read about it first. You smell it.
Hatch green chile season runs from late July through early October, with peak harvest in August. The chiles come exclusively from the Hatch Valley in southern New Mexico — a stretch of the Rio Grande where the combination of high desert sun, dramatic temperature swings between day and night, and mineral-rich soil produces a pepper that can’t be replicated anywhere else. The flavor profile is specific: a roasted sweetness, an earthy backbone, mild to moderate heat depending on the variety. They’re not trying to burn you. They’re trying to round out a dish.
And Central Market has been throwing the best party in Texas for this pepper since 1995.
CENTRAL MARKET: THE MAIN EVENT
Central Market’s 31st Annual Hatch Chile Festival is coming in August 2026. Dates will be announced shortly — check centralmarket.com and the CraveDFW calendar for confirmation as soon as they drop. What you can count on: three weeks of the most thorough Hatch celebration in Texas, more than 350,000 pounds of fresh chiles brought in from New Mexico, and roasters staffed by a team with well over a century of combined experience turning peppers over open flame. In 2013, the New Mexico Tourism Department recognized Central Market’s festival as the most authentic Hatch celebration outside of New Mexico. That’s the credential that matters.
The festival kicks off with a free Hatch Sampling Stroll — a walk-through tasting event that happens at all locations on opening weekend. You pre-register online, show up, and work your way through the store sampling Hatch-marinated sirloin, crab cakes, guacamole, Hatch chocolate, chile-complementing wines, and whatever else the kitchen has been working on. Registered attendees receive a $10 coupon to spend on Hatch products that evening. It sells out fast. Register the day the link goes live.
During the full festival run, the store transforms. Aisles fill with Hatch product that doesn’t exist the other 46 weeks of the year: Hatch tortillas (a perennial sellout — buy multiples and freeze them), Hatch chile pimento mac and cheese, Hatch chile hummus, Hatch queso, Hatch guacamole, Hatch-marinated sirloin, Hatch crab cakes, and in recent years, Hatch chile and sweet lime cookies that sound like a novelty and turn out to be genuinely good. The Hatch Burger — handcrafted daily with all-natural Black Angus beef and your choice of mild or hot chiles — has been a staple since the first festival. Get one.
The roasting runs daily through the festival. You can buy fresh chiles by the pound or by the case, mild or hot, and the staff will roast them for you on the spot. This is the move: buy in volume, take them home, and freeze what you don’t use immediately in airtight bags. A well-stocked freezer in August means Hatch green chile in your eggs, your enchiladas, your chili, and your quesadillas through the following spring.
Dallas Central Market locations are at 5750 E. Lovers Lane and 320 Coit Road in Plano. Fort Worth is at 4651 W. Freeway.
WHERE ELSE TO BUY
Whole Foods runs its own Hatch program during the season with in-store roasting events and pre-roasted bags from local purveyors. It’s a solid alternative if you’re closer to a Whole Foods than a Central Market. Fiesta Mart typically carries raw Hatch chiles at better prices per pound — worth knowing if you’re buying in bulk for freezing. The Dallas Farmers Market usually has a vendor or two during peak season.
Keep an eye on grocery store parking lots in Plano, Richardson, Garland, and the suburbs throughout August. Small-scale family operations set up roasters on weekends and sell peppers by the bushel, often brought directly from New Mexico. The smoke is the signal. Stop the car.
HOW TO USE THEM
Roasted and peeled, Hatch chiles freeze well in zip-lock bags for up to a year. Press the air out, label the bag with the heat level, and stack them flat. Pull them out as needed for green chile stew, chile rellenos, breakfast eggs, enchilada sauce, burgers, or anywhere you want smoke and heat without overwhelming a dish. The heat level varies by variety — mild NuMex Heritage 6-4, hotter Sandia and Big Jim — so buy a mix and taste before you cook.
To roast at home: set whole chiles directly over a gas flame or under a broiler, turning occasionally, until the skin blisters and blackens on all sides. Transfer to a sealed plastic bag or covered bowl and let them steam for 15 minutes. The skins slip off easily. Don’t rinse them — you’ll wash off flavor.
ON MENUS AROUND DALLAS
Hatch season generates its own menu cycle at Dallas restaurants, and the specials rotate year to year. Velvet Taco reliably builds a weekly rotating taco around Hatch during the season — worth watching their social media for what it is this year. Blue Mesa has run a dedicated Hatch festival menu annually for over two decades, typically including fried Hatch strips, pozole, a relleno plate, and a Hatch margarita. Greenville Ave Pizza Company has done a Hatch pizza that becomes its own seasonal event. Rodeo Goat runs a Hatch green chile cheeseburger during the season that holds up as one of the better burgers in the city when it’s available. Haywire in Uptown has worked Hatch into cornbread and rotating specials. CBD Provisions tends to work it into local meat preparations.
More 2026 Hatch menus will be announced as the season approaches — watch your inbox, follow the restaurants, and check back here. We’ll update as specials are confirmed.
The season doesn’t last long. Peak green chile runs through August and into September. By early October it’s over for another year. Buy more than you think you need, roast everything you can get your hands on, and freeze the rest. You’ll be glad you did in January when you pull a bag of Hatch out of the freezer and your kitchen smells like that parking lot in August.
