“Get the reyano burrito.”
I’ve dutifully followed this advice every Friday night since I first overheard it from a bartender at Elephant Ranch, my regular watering hole in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where I moved last fall. She was referring to the chile reyano (relleno) burrito from Tacos Romero, a Mexican food truck parked indefinitely by the Ranch’s sprawling beer garden. It’s a double-gift-wrapped meal consisting of a cheese-stuffed roasted green chile that’s lightly battered and pan-fried, then nestled with a swipe of refried pinto beans inside a supple flour tortilla the size of a dinner plate. Washed down with an ice-cold Dos Equis while taking in a dramatic desert sunset, I doubt you’ll find a better $10 dinner anywhere.
The first time I ordered the reyano burrito, I anticipated a saucy fork-and-knife affair, like I’ve come to expect from downing burritos Suizos with pitchers of margaritas in Chicago, where I used to live. But—as I’ve learned since relocating to the state where homegrown green chiles reign—bañado (smothered) may not always be the way where burritos are concerned. I suspect this owes partly to the fact that people often eat in their pickup trucks en route to elsewhere. But also the fact that, when the chiles are this good, you don’t need much else. For me, this unfussy yet perfect meal embodies all the best parts of my lower-key, high-desert home; a metaphorical salve for the harried soul that reminds us it’s the simple things—a great meal, the last drops of daylight—that make for a rich life.
While the reyano burrito from Tacos Romero was my first love, you’ll find excellent versions all around town—most of them sharing a few key features. “It starts with a good Hatch chile—that’s the main ingredient,” says Danny Hernandez, owner of Nellie’s Cafe, which is just a few miles from Elephant Ranch and takes a similar pared-back approach. Hatch refers not to a chile type but the Southern New Mexican farming community some 40 miles up the road that yields the state’s most famous peppers—meaty and tangy with an almost grassy flavor and varying heat levels, depending on the variety. Hernandez’s 89-year-old mother (and the restaurant’s namesake) prefers the mild, sweet, Hatch-grown pepper called Big Jim for Nellie’s rellenos, which she still makes from scratch every day at her 55-year-old restaurant.
According to her son, Nellie Hernandez gently folds fluffed-up egg whites into whisked yolks before dipping each roasted green chile that she hand-fills with Muenster or asadero cheese. After a light flour dredge, the chiles are eased into iron skillets to shallow-fry until golden outside and molten inside. Then they’re packed into tortillas with a smear of refried pintos or plated with rice, beans, and warm enchilada sauce to be eaten in view of a sign on the dining room wall that says, “A day without chile is like a day without sunshine.”
Marrying ingredients and techniques from precolonial Mexico and Spain, chiles rellenos is a dish whose origins are steeped in legend. One popular tale claims that nuns in Puebla, Mexico invented a kind of precursor to the dish for soon-to-be emperor Agustín de Iturbide in 1821, who stopped there en route to Mexico City after signing the treaty establishing Mexican independence from Spain. Allegedly, the nuns whipped up a batch of chiles en nogada on the spot as an edible emblem of the newly sovereign country’s flag: green poblano chiles stuffed with ground meat, fruits, nuts, and spices that are blanketed in creamy white walnut (nogal) sauce, and garnished with red pomegranate seeds. But historians have since pointed out that Indigenous and mestizo folks were possibly making variations of stuffed chiles for hundreds of years before Mexican independence.
In the centuries since the storied dish was supposedly invented in Mexico, it’s taken up subtle variations as Indigenous and mestizo people mingled northward and outward, to places like New Mexico. At Santa Fe’s farm-to-table stalwart, Cafe Pasqual’s, “rellenos” extend beyond just chiles as the seasons dictate. From May to October, chef-owner Katharine Kagel stuffs fragile squash blossoms with herbed cream cheese, then sautés and sprinkles the flowers with panko before plating them with roasted tomato salsa. But when it comes to classic chiles rellenos con queso, Kagel, like Hernandez, opts for simplicity: hand-stuffed chiles lightly dredged in airy egg batter and pan-fried. In Cafe Pasqual’s case, that means organic Anaheim peppers filled with shredded asadero cheese, which take a turn in the hot oil before Kagel plates them in a bath of warm tomato-jalapeño salsa, nodding to the dish’s Mexican roots.
Kagel warns of one new tradition that’s taken root locally: restaurants buying premade frozen rellenos con queso. “Beware the frozen relleno, which has become ubiquitous in New Mexico!” she cries. Deep-fried (not shallow-fried) with a telltale thick breading “resembling a freezer corn dog in texture,” it oozes orangey faux cheddar cheese when carved, she says. While certain chefs opt for a thicker, pancake-like batter on their rellenos, Hernandez points out that both versions overwhelm the subtle flavor of the chile, which, let’s face it, is why we’re all here. “When I’m roasting just-harvested green chiles in summertime, all I need is a salt shaker and flour tortilla,” Hernandez says. “That’s a good-smelling job and a good little appetizer while you’re doing it.”
It’s in the same spirit of simplicity that I return week after week to Tacos Romero’s unadorned reyano burrito—now my own edible emblem of these New Mexican borderlands—to savor with a cold beer as I stare at the smoldering sky. In a world of relentless knottiness, might I suggest one soft, cheesy, and perfectly uncomplicated balm? Get the relleno burrito.