The Colorado green chile burger is defined by the chile, not the beef, and specifically by the fact that the chile is roasted and used as a topping rather than ladled over the plate as a stew. Pueblo or Hatch green chiles are fire-roasted, peeled, and laid on a beef patty with a slice of pepper jack, and that roasted chile is the dominant flavor and the reason the sandwich has its own name. This is the line that separates it from the New Mexico green chile cheeseburger, where the chile is more often a wet sauce that floods the build. Here the chile reads as a vegetable on the burger, smoky and bright and structurally distinct, and that decision is the sandwich.
The craft is in the roast and the pairing. Roasting blisters and chars the chile's skin so it can be slipped off, which concentrates the pepper's flavor and turns its raw vegetal bite into something deep and slightly sweet with a controlled burn. Pueblo chiles tend toward a thicker, meatier, hotter pod; Hatch is the broader regional reference; the choice shifts the heat but not the logic. The chile is laid on the patty while the burger is still hot so its moisture and the rendering fat of the beef meet, and the pepper jack is melted into that junction so the cheese binds the chile to the meat rather than letting it slide. The cheese choice is deliberate: pepper jack adds its own low heat and a melt that flows into the seared crust, reinforcing the chile rather than cooling it. The bun has to absorb the fat of the patty and the moisture the roasted chile gives off without going to mush, which is why a sturdier soft bun is the right carrier. This is mountain-town and roadside food, cooked on a flat-top and assembled fast, the chile often roasted in batches in advance and held so it can be piled on to order.
The variants move with the chile and the cook. A hotter Pueblo pod against a milder Hatch, a double patty to balance a heavy chile load, a build that leans wetter and pushes toward its New Mexico cousin. It belongs to the broad American burger family and its regional dialects, and those relatives deserve their own articles rather than being crowded in here.