• Ingredients
  • 4-5 poblano chiles
  • 3 Tbsp. butter
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3 Tbsp. flour
  • 4 cups chicken stock or broth
  • 1/2 tsp. salt (plus more to taste)
  • Ground pepper
  • Optional Garnishes
  • Cilantro
  • Sour cream or heavy cream
  • Hot sauce
  • Croutons or tortilla chips

Rinse the poblanos and roast on a baking tray at 400 degrees F. At 15 minutes, flip them over. Give them another 10-15 minutes. The peel should be curling up. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

In a saucepan over medium heat, add 3 Tbsp. butter. Once melted, stir in the chopped onion. Saute for 5-7 minutes. Stir in garlic and saute for another 1-2 minutes. Stir in 3 Tbsp. flour and mix very well. Stir in 4 cups chicken stock and 1/2 tsp. salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook for 8-10 minutes.

Once the poblanos have cooled a bit, pull off as much skin as you can, then de-stem and de-seed them. Roughly chop and add to the saucepan with the stock mixture. Blend the mixture in a blender or food processor until smooth. You may have to wait for it all to cool a little bit. An immersion blender would be best.

Return to the saucepan and heat to simmer for 5-10 minutes. Add salt to taste.

Garnish and serve.

NOTES: I laughed while making this. It’s my mother’s (Bushka) recipe. It was well-known she did not like spicy food. I guess being married 67 years to a man originally from Texas must have rubbed off on her. The last few times I visited them before she passed in 2022, she asked me to make this soup. Personally, I think it’s the best ever, but I can’t figure out why she wanted me to make it. Depending upon the poblanos, it can be really spicy! I could tell it was too spicy for her the last time, but the world’s most stubborn woman that she was, she ate it. Every last bite! This soup recipe is one that I was determined to bring home with me, so I made sure to snap photos of it before I left. I recently made the soup at home for the first time. It was weird not having my dad roast the poblanos. My poblanos were huge and they were refrigerated, so the roasting time was longer. After roasting, I covered them, because that’s what Dad always did and I think they did need to be steamed, they were so large. De-seeding was a real pain, but I persevered and the deed was done. The soup turned out really spicy and my husband (another Swedish-descendant like my mom) barely choked it down. I thought it was delicious! More for me! Thus my laughter while typing this. I don’t have an immersion blender, so I cooled the mix a little while and then blended it in my food processor in two batches.