Hey, David Chang: Here’s How You Actually Make Colorado-Style Green Chile

David Chang is a world-renowned celebrity chef who has changed the face of fine dining in this country with his opinionated and innovative rejection of pretentious formalities and fussy traditions. 

But apparently, he doesn’t know anything about Colorado-style green chile.

The local staple inspires a lot of passion each year when we release our picks for the best places to eat it. Whether your favorite made the cut or not, we should all be able to agree that Chang’s version is a major fail. On the heels of his 2024 Chile Crunch debacle, which actually started when Momofuku acquired that trademark from a small Colorado brand, he’s not doing a lot to make friends around here.

On episode six of season three of his Netflix series Dinner Time Live, where he interviews celebrity guests while cooking for them, he started out the evening’s “Hangover Menu” with a nod to one of Colorado’s contributions to the culinary lexicon of America: the Slopper.

Created in Pueblo, it’s a hamburger smothered — bun and all — in Colorado-style green chile, which is typically a gravy-like stew made with pork and, preferably, Pueblo chiles.

Grey’s Coors Tavern in Pueblo is credited with originating the dish, and it still serves one of the best versions around. The standard includes two patties on a toasted, open-face bun, topped with cheese and diced onions, then smothered. Fries on top are optional.

The Slopper isn’t well-known outside of Colorado, so it was interesting when Chang gave a rare name check to the dish for guests Blake Anderson, Adam DeVine and Anders Holm (of the Comedy Central series Workaholics). “This is like a 25 napkin burger,” he warned his guests — even though a Slopper is usually eaten with a fork and knife. “What’s it called again?” he asked co-host Chris Ying. 

“It’s a mash-up of a po’ boy and something in Colorado called a Slopper,” Ying responded.

“Shout out to Colorado,” said Holm, as his fellow guests guffawed at the title. “Sounds like they’re doing it right out there.”

At first, all seemed well. Chang noted he was going to make a “green chile sauce.” Okay. Not how we’d say it, but close enough.

And then he started discussing ingredients. The first warning sign was the additional sandwich condiment he made for his slopper/po’ boy mashup, which consisted of blended jalapeno and pickles mixed with mayo. Um… not a Slopper ingredient, but whatever, he’s allowed to riff a bit. 

Then he made the “chile.” Now, there’s only so much you can really accomplish in a 45-minute live cooking show, and clearly, a properly made green chile isn’t gonna happen within those constraints. But the show features plenty of pre-made items (hello, freshly-made bread), so it’s not insane to think that maybe a good pot of proper green chile could have made its way in there. 

Instead, Chang unceremoniously dumped roasted Hatch chiles (Hatch!), tomatillos, jalapenos, garlic, chicken bouillon and fish sauce into a blender. And viola! “Green chile sauce.”

That, my Michelin-starred friend, is not green chile. It’s salsa. And while that’s okay to put on a burger, or even to put on a so-called “dirty burger” hybrid po’ boy, it’s definitely not representative of a Slopper. Not to be culinarily dogmatic, but it’s hard not to feel a twinge of regret at such a missed opportunity to showcase our quirky dish to the Netflix world. 

So if it helps, given that we’re at the height of green chile season, here’s a little cooking advice from Westword food editor Molly Martin on how to make a proper green chile. And if you want to try another approved take, check out former Westword food editor Mark Antonation’s recipe for the dish.

Hopefully, the next time Chang finds himself in Colorado, he can get a real taste of our beloved version of green chile — because it doesn’t seem like he enjoyed his version much. After taking one small bite of the sandwich he’d made, he set it aside, never to be touched again.