The Hatch Chile Festival runs over Labor Day weekend every year, in Hatch, New Mexico. The 2026 festival was Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 September. Labor Day 2027 falls on Monday 6 September, so expect the 2027 festival on the 4th and 5th, and check the festival's own site before you book anything.
Here is the more useful thing, and the reason most people land on this page in September: if you missed the festival, you have not missed chile season. The festival is one weekend. The harvest runs for weeks on either side of it, and the roasters keep turning long after the carnival rides come down.
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Dates, and how to plan around them
The festival has been held over Labor Day weekend since it began in 1971, when it was a small gathering of local farmers marking the harvest. It now draws more than 30,000 visitors to a small farming town, which is the single most important fact for anyone planning to attend.
Only the confirmed line is a promise. The rest is the calendar, and the organizers have held to Labor Day weekend for decades, but dates get posted closer to the time and occasionally things move.
What actually happens there
A parade. Live music. Carnival rides. Artisan and food vendors, most of them building something around green chile. And the part everyone comes for: the roasters running all weekend, which is the smell people describe for the rest of their lives.
It is a small town festival, not a food expo. That is the appeal and also the thing to plan around. Expect dust, heat, a long line for a roasted chile cheeseburger, and a parking situation that rewards arriving early.
The festival is not the season
This is the part that costs people a trip they did not need to make, or a trip they did not make and should have.
Green chile harvest in New Mexico runs from roughly August into late September or early October, depending on the year and how the weather went. The festival sits near the middle of that window, not at the start or the end of it.
What follows from that:
- You can buy and roast chile for weeks before and after the festival. Roadside roasters, farm stands and grocery store parking lots across the state run drums through the whole harvest. You do not need a festival ticket to get a sack roasted.
- Festival weekend is the busiest and most expensive time to be in Hatch. If your goal is chile rather than a parade, going a week either side is a calmer errand.
- Late season chile is not worse. It is often the opposite. Pods that ripen later have had more time on the plant, and some of the best red comes from the tail end of the window.
- The window closes for real. Once it is over, it is over until next August, which is why New Mexicans put up a year's worth in one weekend.
How much to put up is worth working out in advance, because a bushel and a sack are about fifteen pounds apart and most people either underbuy the first year or wildly overbuy the second.
If you are going
Bring a cooler. This is the one piece of advice nobody at a roaster will give you. Roasted chile is a cooked, moist, low acid vegetable, and Colorado State Extension recommends transporting commercially roasted chile home in a cooler with ice or cold packs. NMSU Guide E-324 gives the hard limit: cooled below 40°F within two hours, then used or frozen within three days. A hot bag riding home in a warm car has already spent a good chunk of that.
Go early. Parking and shade both run out, and the roasters get busier through the day.
Decide your heat level before you are standing there. Mild, medium, hot and extra hot are real differences, and the same variety runs hotter in a dry year, because NMSU notes that field stress raises the heat of even a mild cultivar. Taste one before you commit to forty pounds.
Know what you are going to do with it when you get home. A sack is a project. The roasting and freezing guide covers peeling, packing and the storage timelines, and figure on about three hours to process a full sack from roasted pods to sealed bags.
Plan the food, not just the chile. Green chile stew uses three cups for a pot of eight, which is the fastest way through a freezer, and green chile enchilada sauce is the other thing worth making in volume while the chile is fresh.
If you missed it
Two honest answers, depending on where you are.
If you are in New Mexico and it is still September or early October, go find a roaster. The season is still open. That is the best chile you will cook with all year and nothing we sell replaces the experience of standing next to a propane drum while somebody fills a bag for you.
If the season has closed, or you are a thousand miles away, that is what we pack for. There is no drum running anywhere in February.
- Frozen Hatch green chile arrives flame roasted, peeled and flash frozen in 5 lb bags, in 10 or 20 lb orders, in Mild, Hot or XXHot. It ships UPS air and has to be delivered in two days or less, and if it arrives warm to the touch we refund the entire order plus shipping, no questions asked. Harvest quantities are limited.
- 16 oz jars of flame roasted Hatch green chile in Medium or Hot, shelf stable, for the eleven months when nobody is roasting. Hatch chile, salt, garlic, lime juice.
- The red and green harvest blend, because Christmas is not a compromise.
- In New Mexico, the store locator shows who carries us, and the retailer request form gets us onto a shelf that does not have us.
And if you want to understand what you are actually buying at that festival, what makes Hatch chile different covers the valley, the varieties and the reason there is less of it every year. The mistakes and substitutions guide is what to read before you cook with it, and the recipe archive is free.
Common questions
When is the Hatch Chile Festival?
Labor Day weekend, every year, in Hatch, New Mexico. The 2026 festival was 5 and 6 September. The 2027 festival is expected on 4 and 5 September, since Labor Day falls on Monday 6 September that year.
How long has the Hatch Chile Festival been running?
Since 1971. It started as a small gathering of local farmers celebrating the harvest and now draws more than 30,000 visitors.
What happens at the festival?
A parade, live music, carnival rides, artisan and food vendors, and chile roasting all weekend. It is a small town harvest festival rather than a food expo.
Did I miss chile season if I missed the festival?
No. Green chile harvest runs from roughly August into late September or early October. The festival is one weekend near the middle of that window, and roasters run across the state for weeks on either side of it.
Can I buy chile to take home from the festival?
Yes, that is a large part of why people go. Bring a cooler with ice or cold packs, because roasted chile needs to get below 40°F within two hours of coming off the heat.
How much chile should I buy at the festival?
Work backward from how you eat. A sack of 30 to 40 pounds yields roughly 36 to 44 cups of cleaned chile, which is about a dozen pots of green chile stew and enough for most households for a year.
Is late season chile worse than early season?
No, and often the opposite. Pods that ripen later have spent more time on the plant, and much of the best red chile comes from the end of the window.
Where can I get Hatch chile out of season?
Frozen or jarred. The harvest is a fixed window, so anything you eat in February was put up during it.
The short version
Labor Day weekend, in Hatch, since 1971, more than 30,000 people. 2026 was 5 and 6 September. 2027 is expected on the 4th and 5th.
And the festival is one weekend of a harvest that runs from August into early October. If you missed the parade you did not miss the chile, so go find a roaster while the window is open. When it closes, our frozen chile and jars are how you get to next August.