Today we’ll be making a delicious spicy Chile Verde. This is a traditional Mexican stew using tender pork and green chiles as a base for a creamy, flavorful sauce. The recipe is pretty simple, but takes about 3 hours to cook!

Difficulty: 2/5

Time Required: 3 hours

You will need:

4 lbs boneless pork shoulder or pork roast

4 cans of diced green chiles (I use a combination of Mild and Hot chiles, but feel free to make this as spicy or mild as you like!)

2 cans of whole tomatillos (green tomatoes)

1 Large Yellow Onion

4 Cloves of Garlic

1 Large Jalapeño Chile

2 cups of Chicken Broth (not stock)

1-2 Ripe tomatoes (i used Roma Tomatoes)

Oregano

Salt and Pepper

Cumin

Cilantro

Sour Cream and Tortillas for Garnish and Serving

Cutting Board and Chef’s Knife

A large pot or your trusty Slow Cooker

Strainer

Ladle

Your very own Pet Helper! (optional) 😛

So Let’s Get Cooking!

First you’ll want to Cut up your Pork into about 1 inch chunks – they should be 1 or 2 bite-sized

Once this is done, season them with about 2 tsp of Salt and 1 tsp of Pepper and add them to your Pot – make sure the spices are evenly distributed as this will really bring out the flavor and tenderness of the pork.

Then you’ll want to add in your chiles…

and Diced Tomatoes…

to really get some color going. A quick note at this point, while this chile is going to be mostly green (Hence the name Chile Verde) the red tomatoes can really add some extra flavor without messing up that nice creamy color palette.

So next we want to drain off our Tomatillos into a strainer like so…

Then you’ll want to grab them all by hand and mash ’em up really well to break up the skin into biteable sections and get the seeds and mushy tasty insides ready to add to our pot.

Next you’ll want to dice up your Jalapeño, Onion, and Garlic…

And add them to our pot as well with the tomatillos – by now it should start to look something like this:

Looks good right!?! Look at all that flavor and spice! If you don’t want your stew to be too spicy, feel free to cut out the Jalapeno seeds and membranes on the inside, as that is where most of the chemicals that create that oh-so-pleasant burning sensation come from.

Then we’ll throw in our 2 cups of Chicken Broth –

Finally, we want to add in our Cumin, about 2 tsps, and Oregano, about 1 Tbsp. At this point all of our ingredients are in one big flavor pot!

It looks like a big mish-mash of flavor, which it is! That’s the beauty of stew. Grab a spoon or ladle and mix the whole bunch up until its looking pretty even in topping distribution – then put the whole pot or cooker on High Heat. You’ll want to cook it on high until the Broth has begun to boil evenly on the edges – about 15 minutes. Then take the whole thing down a notch to a very low setting and let it stew for about 2-3 hours.

This is the best part of cooking….sitting around, smelling that tender pork getting juicier by the minute! Go grab a glass of wine and chill out! Your entire home will begin to smell like salsa and pork with all of those fragrant spices, and the longer the stew slow cooks the more the flavor will enhance. MMMmmmmMM!

When you’re ready to eat, just ladle the creamy green stew into a large bowl, garnish with cilantro and Sour Cream, and serve with warm tortillas. The tortillas you can dip in the broth and trust me, it will be even better!

Here’s what mine looks like!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go chow down on about 2 bowls of this. I hope you enjoy your Chile Verde! And the best part? You’ve only got one pot to clean up! This recipe, like most soups and stews, makes a LOT, so be sure to have leftover containers on hand so you can reheat and eat this for the rest of the weekend – I plan to make it stretch for dayyyyyys.

Let me know what you think of it!