Chile Verde Pork

 

Chile Verde Pork stars tender chunks of pork slowly simmered in a green chile sauce with classic Mexican herbs and spices. This is an easy version, made for showering liberally with your fave Tex-Mex toppings, serving over rice, or (if you live in our household) dunking with tortilla chips

.At its most essential, authentic chile verde pork is a stew made with roasted tomatillos, roasted green chiles, cilantro, and herbs.

It’s more smoky and nuanced than it is spicy.

Chile verde pork can be thick or thin depending upon how you want to serve it.

Making Chile Verde Pork At Home (The Easy Way)

The base for truly authentic chile verde pork calls for roasting tomatillos and an array of green chiles, such as jalapenos, poblanos, and/or Anaheim peppers (or, if you are lucky you can make hatch chile verde).

Once roasted, the vegetables are blended into a sauce, then simmered with chunks of juicy pork, until the meat is fall-apart tender.

The traditional roasting/blending is the slow, robust route (like the one I use for this incredible Green Chili recipe), and it is unquestionably delicious.

It’s also not a route I have time to take most nights of the week.

Enter this shortcut, easy chile verde pork!

• This recipe uses store-bought shortcuts like canned green enchilada sauce (if you prefer to make your own, I have a stellar recipe in my cookbook), green salsa, and canned diced green chiles to mimic the flavor of slow-roasted green chiles.
• It doesn’t sacrifice where it counts. A few small but meaningful extras, like browning the pork prior to adding it to the slow cooker (like also I recommend in my Crockpot Pork Roast) , helps up the complexity of the chile verde pork, giving you from-scratch flavor.

5 STAR REVIEW

“I made it and it turned out great! I’m so glad you talked about the fact that short cuts can taste just as good as food that takes longer to prepare. I don’t want to be a snob when it comes to cooking. I just want to serve food that tastes great!”

— TINA —

Pork chile verde can be thick or thin, depending upon how you’d like to serve it (over rice vs. inside tortillas, for example).

• Since my husband Ben is skeptical of anything that’s called a “soup,” (I told him Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup was named tortilla stew), or that looks brothy or thin, I made ours on the thicker side.
• It’s still brothy enough to serve over rice (my fave), but if you prefer, you could certainly turn it into a taco or burrito filling.

How to Make Chile Verde Pork

Since green enchilada sauce (like the one in The Well Plated Cookbook) and green salsa share many of the same ingredients as the verde sauce in chile verde pork, you can lean on store-bought versions of these two, landing dinner on the table in a fraction of the time.

To keep the cooking as easy and hands-free as possible, I made this chile verde pork in the slow cooker.

If you prefer, you can simmer it on the stove over low heat instead.

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The Ingredients

• Pork. While pork shoulder or pork butt are traditional for chile verde, here I opt for pork loin, which is leaner. Be sure to watch the pork carefully towards the end of the cook time to make sure it doesn’t dry out.

SUBSTITUTION TIP!

If you’d like to make this recipe more authentic, you can follow the same recipe but use cubed pork shoulder or cubed pork butt instead.

• To use these cuts, follow the cook times indicated in this Slow Cooker Pulled Pork, which also uses pork shoulder/butt: high for 5 to 6 hours or low for 8 to 10 hours.

• Chicken Stock or Light Beer. You can use a light beer or chicken stock here. Choose your own adventure.
• Carrots. Carrots are a delicious and nutritious addition to the pork. They’re rich in vitamins and fiber.
• Spices. A combination of chili powder, cumin, and oregano adds robust, earthy notes.
• Salsa Verde. Smoky, herbaceous, and a little tart (in a good way). You can use your favorite brand and opt for a spicy version if you prefer. I made this a Herdez chile verde recipe; it’s a brand that is widely available with good flavor. I used it for both the salsa and the enchilada sauce.
• Green Enchilada Sauce. Bursting with green chile flavor, green enchilada sauce is a major part of what makes this chile verde pork so scrumptious.

TIP!

I used a store-bought enchilada sauce, but if you decide to make your own green enchilada sauce (good for you!) be sure to roast your tomatillos until they are well-browned and collapsing.

Tomatillos are acidic, so if they are not properly cooked, they can make your pork chile verde taste sour.

For a fantastic homemade green enchilada sauce, check out my cookbook.

• Green Chiles. It’s not chile verde pork without ’em! I use canned to keep the prep quick and easy (like I did in my Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Soup too).
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The Directions

1. Trim and cut the pork. Sprinkle with salt.

2. Brown the pork in two batches, then transfer it all to a slow cooker.

3. Stir in the broth, scraping the bottom of the pan. Add the carrots and onions.

4. Stir in the garlic and spices. Transfer the mixture to the slow cooker.

5. Add the salsa, enchilada sauce, and chiles to the slow cooker. Stir.

6. Cook on low for 3 to 4 hours. Then stir and ENJOY!

 to 1 day in advance. Refrigerate each in separate airtight storage containers.