Over the weekend, I decided it was chile time, so I headed to the local grocery store to pay a premium on marginal ingredients. To my horror, Anaheim chiles, which I hated paying for at $2.99/lb., had gone up to $3.99/lb! I wasn't paying that price without a fight, so I headed for the Mexican food aisle to see what options existed in jars/cans. I found a couple different brands of both chiles and tomatillos. The prices were comparable to what it would have cost me to suck up the fresh price, but I decided it was time to satisfy a long-time curiosity and try the canned products to see what the differences were.

I ended up with a product that was quite good but was simply not the same, as I suspected I would. I should add that the prep time was cut in half with the chiles being roasted, peeled, seeded, and diced in advance, and that was a nice plus. My final assessment was that, while I will always opt for fresh ingredients when practical moving forward, the canned options weren't bad in a pinch. I did notice that the canned tomatillos (not roasted before canning) had a slightly bitter aftertaste. A small amount of sugar balanced it out pretty well, but there was still a little something there that was less than ideal. Also, the salt added during the canning process was a bit more than what I like in my chile, so be sure to taste before you add any salt if using canned stuff.