There are a few big days a year that I love: Christmas, Halloween, National Wine Day…and the day Hatch peppers come back to Melissa’s Produce! This week we got lucky and attended the summer fruits and Hatch pepper demo at Melissa’s in Vernon. It was three hours of learning about fresh summer produce, trying new Hatch pepper recipes, and watching Chef Tom whip up some of the items we were served. Keep reading for my Hatch Pepper Popcorn Ice Cream recipe for your Ninja Creami below!

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Melissa’s Produce Summer Fruits & Hatch Pepper Demo 2025: Hatch Pepper Popcorn Ice Cream Recipe for Your Ninja Creami

First, a few fun facts about Hatch peppers:

They come from Hatch, New Mexico, in the Mesilla Valley just north of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
People travel there every year to attend the festival, which takes place next on August 30-31. The highlight of the event is the big roast!
There are over 30 varieties of Hatch peppers, ranging from mild to extra hot.
The seeds are not what’s hot in a Hatch pepper; the heat comes from capsaicin found in the veins of the pepper.
When you roast a Hatch pepper, you peel off the outside skin, which is actually tasteless, so you’re not missing anything! It’s kind of its own built-in protection system.
Hatch peppers can be used fresh, roasted, frozen and in powder form, all depending on how much heat, texture and flavor you want.

What kind of things can you do with Hatch peppers? EVERYTHING. I mean, the ice cream we had at the Melissa’s demo is proof that you really can use it in everything. (More on that later!) It can be used to gently give a mild heat or to hit you in the face with spice. The mild ones are most commonly purchased, but there are diehards out there <like me> that love the hot ones. I’ve never tried an XL hot, the hot are perfect for me.

Melissa’s Produce sent us home with a big box of goodies, and one of the items was a bag of the Hatch Pepper Chili Kettle Corn. (I also got salsa, a Waterloupe melon, pineapples, a mango, grapes, and more.) One challenge we all have after demos is to create a new recipe (or remake one we tried at the event) with the items we take home. I was inspired by Chef Tom’s vanilla bean ice cream to try a new ice cream recipe for my Ninja Creami.

The best thing about Hatch pepper season though? Hatch pepper roasts! If you’ve never been to one, you’re missing out. The smell of the roasting peppers will make you immediately hungry. You can purchase Hatch peppers fresh, and some places will sell roasted peppers as well. You can attend a roast at a local store (you can find 2025 Hatch pepper roast location list here) and they’ll roast them for you.

2025 Melissa's Produce Hatch Pepper demo with a picture of the Hatch pepper cookbook and a Hatch pepper roasting machine

Alternatively, buy them fresh and roast them at home! This is what I often do, because while we have a second refrigerator and freezer in the garage, we’re foodies with a young adult son gym rat at home who can eat, we don’t always have the space for big crates of peppers, so we tend to do them in smaller batches throughout Hatch pepper season, which runs from around August 1 to the end of September. (Some stores do run out early though!)

Roasting peppers at home is pretty easy: clean and dry the peppers, place on a baking sheet and roast (using your roast option) for approximately 10 minutes. When done, cool them for about 15 minutes in a sealed bag or bowl, then slide off the skins. They’re ready to eat OR you can freeze them. I put mine in quart-sized zipper bags for use in small portions.

I’m a vegetarian, so I love eating roasted peppers with a light balsamic glaze and some feta cheese. (Heat the pepper with the feta in the oven at 375 for about 8-10 minutes; top with some glaze.) I also put them on a black bean burger, in a grilled cheese sandwich, chopped with tempeh or crispy feta, in a pasta salad…the list is endless.

Are you ready to try a new fun take on a spicy but high-protein ice cream? I think this recipe nails it! It’s got just a tiny bit of pepper kick, a solid vanilla flavor, and a solid boost to your daily intake protein coming in at 38 grams for the whole pint. (I use a Ninja Creami 7-in-1, so the containers are 16 oz each.)

Ninja Creami high protein ice cream recipe with Melissa's Produce Hatch Pepper Kettle Corn infused into the fairlife milk

A couple of things about this recipe first! One important thing is that the kettle corn itself is NOT in the recipe! You’re simply infusing the flavor into the Fairlife (lactose-free) milk; you get the flavors without the extra calories. (But the popcorn is fantastic to eat on its own, so it’s a good thing this recipe only takes about 1 1/2 cups of the kettle corn!)

infuse melissa's produce hatch pepper kettle corn into Fairlife lactose-free milk

You’ll strain the milk and remove the kettle corn remnants. Cool this liquid before use!

Another fun part is that you’ll use actual vanilla bean as opposed to liquid vanilla extract. It smells fantastic and gives the ice cream that incredible flecks.

Kirkland organic vanilla bean on a cutting board

Melissa's Produce Hatch Pepper Kettle Corn-infused protein ice cream in a blue bowl in front of a Ninja Creami machine

Hatch Pepper Kettle Corn-Infused Ice Cream

This fun, summery ice cream is the great end to any meal, or a fun breakfast if you want something that tastes indulgent! It has 38 grams of protein and only approximately 375 calories, if you use Fairlife. If you don't, you'll need to adjust the protein/calorie count accordingly; same with the protein powder, though most come in around the same count.

Ingredients

16 oz Fairlife milk
1 1/2 cup Hatch Pepper Kettle Corn
1 scoop protein powder
1/4 tsp guar gum
1/2 tsp Truvia or other sugar equivalent
1 vanilla bean

Instructions

Start by making the kettle-corn infused milk!
Pour the milk into a small sauce pan; add the 1 1/2 cups of Melissa's Produce Hatch Pepper Kettle Corn, stir and heat to a very low simmer.
Let the mixture simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring a few times. Remove from heat. Cool for 10 minutes and strain popcorn out of milk with a fine mesh strainer.
For an extra flavor bonus: push the popcorn into the strainer mesh with the back of a large spoon, repeatedly until mixture seems dry. This should create a foam on the outside of the strainer. Scrape that foam into the milk!
Dispose of popcorn remnants.
Pour the milk into a bowl; add in the protein powder, guar gum, Truvia, and blend with an immersion blender.
Scrape the inside of the vanilla bean and add all the vanilla into the mixture once it's cool. Briefly blend once more.
Pour into Ninja Creami container and freeze overnight or for at least 18 hours.

What did we eat at the Melissa’s Produce Summer Fruits & Hatch Pepper Demo 2025?

Hatch Chile Deviled Eggs
Spicy Stuffed Mushrooms
Mac ‘n Cheese with Hatch
Big Game Chili
Hatch Tacos de Papa
Hatch Chicken Alfredo
Hatch Chile Slaw
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Melissa’s produce summer fruits, like the Waterloupe melon (a hybrid of a watermelon and a canteloupe), champagne/table grapes, charentais melon, pineapples, oranges and more

An informal poll was taken by Robert (from Melissa’s) as to the most popular food and at it was the chile! It had meat in it, as did the Alfredo, so I was bummed I couldn’t try it but it sure did look good. My favorite savory food was the Hatch Tacos de Papa, but everything was delicious. I mean, look at this plate!

Melissa's Produce Summer fruit and hatch pepper demo 2025 plate of food prepared by Chef Tom Fraker

Chef Tom showed us how to make the Hatch Chile Slaw and one thing that makes it so easy is the bag of pre-shredded veggies! You can find that recipe, and the rest, in the book featured above. It’s available at Melissas.com, as well as the second book. Hundreds of recipes are available in those two books and on the website.

The last thing I ate was The Devil’s Favorite Devil’s Food Cupcake, and the Hatch Pepper Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. Both were delicious, but that ice cream was incredible. A smooth, cold bite of heat blends with the vanilla so perfectly. It’s refreshing yet keeps you on your toes at the same time. Stay tuned here on the blog for an upcoming ice cream recipe for your Ninja Creami machine!

Thanks to Melissa’s Produce for the invite, and for the awesome box of goodies we got to each take home. (Signed books were also available if you didn’t have them already. I have them both and they are well-worn and used regularly.)

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