This chili verde is one of my favourite recipes and when I was making it the other day I thought that it was a great opportunity to take some new photos and update the recipe! Authentic chili verde is a chili, the dish, consisting of pork and chili peppers, in this case green ones like poblano peppers and jalapeno peppers. The sauce is filled out out with roasted tomatillos, onion, garlic and broth and after the pork is cut into small pieces and browned it is simmered in it until it’s melt in your mouth tender! It’s that easy! Pork simmered/braised in salsa verde and it’s so good! I like to serve this like a stew topped with garnishes like limes, avocados, sour cream, radish, cheese, etc but it’s also great as a filling for tacos, burritos, etc. This traditional pork chili verde is perfect for cool fall evenings and any leftovers only get better the next day!
Slow cooker chili verde is an even easier way to go!
The original photo!
Chile Verde
A Mexican style pork stew in a tasty salsa verde that is slowly braised until the pork melts into your mouth!
ingredients
- 2 pounds tomatillos, husks removed and washed
- 2 poblano peppers, cut in half lengthwise and seeds removed
- 2 jalapeno peppers, cut in half lengthwise and seeds removed
- 1 large white onion, cut into 8 wedges
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 cup cilantro, loosely packed
- 2 tablespoons oil (or bacon grease)
- 3 pounds pork butt or shoulder, cut into 1 inch cubes
- 2 cups chicken broth or ham broth
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground (optional)
- 2 teaspoons oregano
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce (or fish sauce, or salt to taste)
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
directions
- Place the tomatillos, peppers (cut sides down), onion and garlic on a baking sheet and broil until the skins are all blistered and black before pureeing in a blender along with the cilantro and setting aside.
- Heat the oil in a large heavy bottom sauce pan or dutch oven over medium-high heat and brown the pork on all sides before setting aside.
- Either add the broth, cumin, oregano, pork and tomatillo sauce, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, covered, over medium-low until the pork is falling apart tender, about 2-3 hour, OR transfer to a preheated 350F/180C oven and roast, covered, until the pork is falling apart tender, about 2-3 hour, OR trsansfer the ingredients to a slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5 hours.
- Remove from heat and season with soy sauce (or salt)
Option: Skip step one and replace the first 6 ingredients with 2 cups of store bought salsa verde to keep things quick and easy!
Option: Skip step two and use un-browned meat.
Option: Blister/char the tomatillos, peppers, onion and garlic over an open flame in in a heavy bottom skillet over high heat instead of broiling.
Option: After the chili is ready, transfer it to the fridge and chill overnight before skimming off the fat/grease and reheating to serve. (This will significantly reduce the fat content but reduce the flavour.)
Option: Add a ham bone or use ham broth to kick up the pork flavour!
Option: Save half of the tomatillo salsa and place it in the stew after it has simmered so that it retains a bit more of it’s green colour.
Option: Mix in a pureed avocado just before serving to thicken the stew and make it creamier!
Option: Add potatoes or white beans to make it even heartier.
Option: If you want more of a soup, add more broth if you want more of a stew, cut back on broth.
Option: Shred the pork. (Further Option: Use the shredded pork in salsa verde as an ingredient in other recipes like tacos, burritos, quesadillas, etc.!
Note: The flavour improves with time so the leftovers will be even better.
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I’m saving your recipe. There are a lot of recipes for this dish that use tomatoes, but at my favorite Mexican restaurant they never use tomatoes. (Warning, bad photos if you check that link. Look at the date!)
BTW, what you’re calling green chiles are really Anaheim chiles, so it’s even more authentic than you thought. (Trust me, I have a sister in law who’s from Mexico.)
Kevin, that’s simply perfect! And it will taste better and better as the days pass. Yum!
Chili peppers are so confusing!
I searched the web a bit more and found this photo with chilies that look just like the ones that I used (the ones that my grocery store has labeled as “Green Chilies”): chile de arbol.
Yummm… I love salsa verde. My grandma used to make Huevos Rancheros and would put that sauce over it instead of the red sauce. Yummmmm
To me that looks delicious, but I am laughing because I can just about picture my kids faces if I tried laying a bowl of that down in front of them… but its GREEN!
Kevin, great job on the dish. I could easily get addicted to cilantro for some odd reason 🙂
This looks and sounds AMAZING!
Kevin, that’s such a terrific recipe. Love the combination of flavors that you’ve got happening in there.
Kevin, I was just re-reading your about me and realise that that will soon need to change because let me tell you, your meals are no longer boring. I’m sure what was happening before you started blogging but let me tell you, boring your meals are not!
Thanks for all the comments and encouragement.
Chili does get better as the days pass. Its a shame that the pot gets emptier as well.
Salsa verde on huevos rancheros sounds good.
I have certainly fixed my boring meals problem. Other than left overs I don’t think that I have really repeated a meal since I started this blog. It seems that I will have to update my About Me section sometime soon.
I guess I should juice in the tomatillo train, yet another exciting thing to add to my list of things I have never cooked with…
Thanks for joining WHB!
on the tomatilos, you don’t mention cutting them in ingredients. do you mean cut them in half or cut top off?
The tomatillos are whole and the poblano and jalapeno peppers are cut in half. Enjoy!
Kevin,
I found this recipe just last week– and made it last night for our church's chili cook-off! Thanks for the great recipe!
– Pastor Bob
http://www.LHBaptist.com
Your link to green chile de arbol was the first time I'd ever seen them in a green state! Thanks for the education 🙂 In the U.S. anaheims are the mildest form of common chile pepper, it's what "canned" or "diced green chiles" in recipes is *always* referring to, in U.S. recipes. Poblanos are great big hulking things somewhere between anaheims and jalapenos in heat.
Poblanos are commonly used in making chili verde, I know I have been using them about 30 years, but before that I used Anaheim chilies and felt they didn’t have enough flavor. I add the Anaheims to the poblanos to bulk up the amount of chilies (I love a green, green chili) but to me the poblanos are the first thing to make sure to use. I have also used Hatch chilies but some times they are far hotter than the poblanos, more in line with jalapenos so on those times, I use them as burritos with beans and cheese to absorb some of the spice. This is the recipe we use, Kevin has a good one and no one needs to search further. I like the extra tips with options..
So when do you add the pork back into with the rest, because i know just browning it, isn't going to cook it all the way through. Do i add it in when its time to simmer???
Styna: Yes the pork is added with the rest of the ingredients for the simmering.
The two chilies you mentioned in your note are really very good and more consistent in heat – as nearly everyone knows that sometimes a jalapeno is not hot… Poblano peppers are often charred to bring out flavor and it you have a gas stove this is easily accomplished by setting the pepper on the burner and turning it own low. They would be worth looking for and trying them out.
Anonymous: I like to add charred poblanos when I can but they are not always available here. I have more consistant luck getting the green jalapenos and the green cayennes.
Too many jalapeños for us. We used Hatch chiles. And instead of a pork lion, I used a pork sirloin. Turned out fine, the meat shredded up. Great on rice.
I’m curious about one step. Usually when I char peppers, the black is peeled/scraped/rubbed off before adding the peppers to the recipe. I don’t see many flecks in your photos, but don’t see a step to remove the blackest of the char, either. Does this mean it’s more of a dark oven roast on the veggies and tomatillos? This recipe looks amazing, and my son-in-law loves chili verde. We live in San Diego, so authentic, delicious Mexican food is easily found. Your recipe has inspired me to expand the Mexican dishes I make at home. I found your blog a few years ago, and LOVE your creations!!! Thanks in advance for the clarification regarding the char.
I’m glad that you have been enjoying my recipes! You can either remove the charred pepper skins or leave them in
Kevin, I’d love to try using the toasted and ground cumin seeds but can’t find them where I live. Would you use regular cumin instead, and if so…how much?
If you cannot find cumin seeds, you can use pre-ground/regular cumin at the same amount (1 teaspoon); you can also omit the cumin. Enjoy!
My mouth is literally watering. My family would love this..
Just made this using frozen roasted tomatillos from last summer’s garden and it was absolutely phenomenal. The fish sauce is an ingenious touch!
Made this delicious meal w a side of pinto beans and Mexican rice. Everyone loved it! Even my 10 yr old triplets! Thanks for posting
This an amazing recipe, the toasted cumin seeds really rounds out the dish….Only variation I did was a heaping tablespoon of Chipotle and since I did crackpot method I used some of the chicken stock to deglaze the Dutch oven and then added to crackpot.
Thanks for this lovely chilli variation, Kevin. At the time that you originally developed the recipe, the “Instant Pot” hadn’t been invented yet! I see this dish being easily easily adaptable to such an appliance. You do feature other appliances, such as slow cookers, in your recipes, so I wonder if the time will come that you mention the Instant Pot as another fabulous meal preparation option. If I were going to give this one a try in my Instant Pot, I would include beans of some sort in the ingredients array … and would start with the dried variety. Then, I would move to the pork cooking … and possibly add the remaining ingredients as a final step. What do you think?
Hey I cook probably more than anyone on this site and without a doubt this is now my all time favorite dish to make!! I have over one thousand tomatillos in my garden, so obviously looking for something new, haha!! Made this for my son, and some friends and it is incredible!! Thanks for this awesome recipe!!
Has anyone tried with chicken? This looks delicious but I don’t eat red meat!
This is really good with chicken!
I made this for a CHEF and he was IMPRESSED!
Making it again for my neighbors birthday celebration. Yummy!