This authentic pork chile verde recipe will rival any you find in a Mexican restaurant! Tender pieces of pork slow cooked with a fantastic homemade green chile sauce (salsa verde). Serve this delicious stew alongside warm tortillas, rice and beans.
If you love chile verde, I know you’ll love my Chile Colorado, Beef Birria and Chilaquiles.
Start with trimming your pork of fat and cutting it into 1” pieces. Season with salt and pepper, and sear it in a very hot pan until browned on all sides. Set aside.
Brown the onion. Add garlic, spices, pork and chicken broth to the pot. Cover with lid and simmer everything for 2-4 hours. Slow cooking the pork makes it extra tender and delicious.
I prefer cooking everything in a cast iron pan because I think it preserves the flavor better, from sautéing everything in the same pan. But, you could place the browned pork, onions, spices, chicken broth into your slow cooker and cook on low for several hours, if you’d like.
While the pork cooks, make the salsa verde. This is my favorite part. This sauce is SO incredible. I love all of the fresh ingredients that blend together to make such bold flavor.
Wash the peppers and tomatillos, and slice them all in half. Remove the stems and seeds from the peppers. If you like things spicier, you could leave one of the jalapeños with seeds in it.
Place all of the peppers, face down, on a baking sheet and broil them. This was a tip I learned in Mexico for creating that great “roasted pepper” flavor.
When the peppers are browned on the top, remove them from the oven and tie them in a plastic bag. This allows them to steam, which softens their outer layer of skin. After they steam you should be able to easily peel off the very outer layer of skin, and discard it.
Broil the tomatillos in the same way. You can peel the skin off after, or just leave it (I usually leave the skin on the tomatillos. It purees easily in the blender).
Add the tomatillos and both types of peppers to the blender, along with fresh cilantro. Blend until no large chunks remain.
Add the sauce to the pot with the pork, and cook everything together for another 30-45 minutes. This allows the delicious flavors from the sauce to blend and simmer into the tender pork.
Now give yourself a huge pat on the back for making such an incredible, flavorful Mexican stew, right in your own kitchen.
I like to serve chile verde with warm flour tortillas, a side of beans and authentic Mexican rice. WOW…sooo good. Hope you all enjoy it as much as me!
If you love Authentic Mexican food, be sure to try:
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Recipe
Chile Verde Pork
Ingredients
- 3 pounds pork loin or pork shoulder , trimmed of fat and cut into 1’’ pieces
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 2 Tablespoons oil (vegetable or canola oil)
- 1 large yellow onion , chopped
- 3 cloves garlic , minced
- 1/2 Tablespoon ground cumin
- 1/2 Tablespoon dried oregano leaves
- 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 4 fresh poblano chiles , seeded and sliced in half
- 2 fresh jalapeño peppers , seeded and sliced in half (*see note)
- 1.5 pounds fresh tomatillos , husks removed
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro , coarsely chopped
Instructions
- Season pork pieces on all sides with salt and pepper.
- Heat a large stock pot over high heat. Add oil. Once hot, sear the pork pieces until browned on all sides.
- Remove the pork from the pot. Add a little additional oil to pan, if needed.
- Add onion and saute until tender. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
- Stir in the cumin and oregano. Return pork to the pot and add the chicken broth.
- Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 2-4 hours.
- Meanwhile, make the sauce.
- Place rack on second to top level of oven and turn the oven to high broil.
- Lightly spray a jelly roll pan with cooking oil. Wash the poblano peppers, jalapeños and tomatillos.
- Slice the tomatillo and both types of peppers in half, and remove stems. Seed the peppers and remove the white veins inside if if you do not want the chile verde to be very spicy. (See my note below about spice level). Do not seed the tomatillos.
- Place the poblano peppers, jalapeño and tomatillos on baking sheets cut side down. Broil for about 7-10 minutes or until browned.
- Immediately place peppers in a plastic bag and tie the bag. Allow them to steam for 5 minutes, and then peel off their outer layer of skin. (It should come off easily)
- Add the peppers, tomatillos and cilantro to a blender and puree.
- Add mixture to the pot with the pork and cook everything together for an additional 30 to 45 minutes.
- Serve with tortillas, and a side of Mexican rice and beans.
Notes
Nutrition
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Wowza!! What a fantastic recipe! I made a double batch of this so I could give it to a friend who was recovering out of hospital, and he LOVES chile verde. He deemed mine to be the best he’s had, including three restaurants he’s had it from in our town. It’s a definite keeper. Super easy to do, and great to make ahead, especially for a crowd!
Family loved it! First time making it and it came out great! Flavor was amazing!
I was so excited to make this and it is delicious! I cut my pork shoulder into smaller cubes and it cooks faster than the stated time. I only left the seeds in 1/2 of one jalapeño. The flavor is very mild. Next time I will leave them in one whole jalapeño. This is delicious!
Ok buckle up…this might be a long road of praise.
We live in Hawaii where Mexican food is almost non existent so we get our fix when we travel. Half the time we experience the tourist variations and when we hit the real deal it is transformative for us because we crave new flavors and it’s life changing. Like most people from Hawaii our jam for vacations is Las Vegas but we have been busy traveling elsewhere for the past number of years and gave ourselves some space from Vegas. We finally ventured back to Vegas 3 years ago and walked into a very famous cafe in Boulder City that was featured on a very famous TV show. The number one dishes were based around Chile Verde which was our first intro. It was Amazing for what it was because we didn’t know better. My husband talked about it non stop and we went back to Vegas every couple of months and made a special stop just for that Verde. I’m over Vegas and said no more trips!
We just came back from a 2 week fall foliage journey through Colorado which is the home of Chile Verde and anytime we found it on a menu my husband ordered it and we realized all recipes are not created equal. We realized what we found in Boulder City was just ok and then we found my husband’s gold standard in Georgetown, Colorado.
I despise pork and my husband goes crazy for anything pork. Let me tell you…the restaurant we stumbled into in Georgetown had THE BEST verde we have ever experienced. We made the mistake of eating here on our last day and my husband requested on our way home that I make Verde (which I never attempted because of our frequent visits to Vegas) once we get home…but make it just like this restaurant (which by the way they were known for). What a tall order!
As we waited at the Airport on our flight home I searched and searched for a recipe and for some reason my instincts kept leading me back to this recipe. I actually can distinguish flavor profiles and don’t really like to deviate from a recipe if I can feel it will be good but let me tell you…this is the only recipe I kept coming back to for Verde. The only change I made was the size of pork pieces. Make them small like 1/4 – 1/2 in size and then thank me later.
I made it finally last night for our Halloween party that we host annually for our adult children and this was the one! Even my 25 year old who claims we gave him the cilantro soap gene declared this was the best flavor he ever had. Everything else we made got ignored. One of our guests grew up in Mexico and moved to SoCal and she exclaimed this recipe (with no prompting) was super authentic and she hasn’t had these flavors since her childhood.
Make this. Save this. Enjoys this!!!
If you like Chili Verde then you need to take a trip to Phoenix, AZ. and visit a Restaurant called
AUNT-chiladas. OMG its absolutely the most fantastic Verde Ever. Take the trip you wont be disappointed. You might even want to move there. lol
Trying this now, but I bought pasilla peppers as that was all my store had. I’m also roasting the onions and garlic with the tomatillos and peppers. I have fresh pork stew meat from a 4-H auction. So excited to try this. I’ll let you know.
omGOODNESS! This recipe is absolsutely delicious…so yummy. I did add one less jalapeno and one less garlic clove. I never thought I could match the flavors of mexican cuisine since I am Norweigen and real, authentic mexican food is my No.1 favorite foods on this earth. This deserves a 5 star rating! Thanks for sharing this awesome recipe!
Sounds delicious. I’ve made chile verde many times, but not with poblanos. I have a bunch from my garden as well as tomatillos that need harvesting, so I’m going to try your recipe tomorrow. I intend to do this in a slow cooker (after browning the meat) because I’ll be gone in the afternoon. Have you tried it that way and did it work?
It should be fine but I like the pork in chile verde to have a meaty bite vs. a very soft carnita style slow cook.
Such a yummy and easy recipe! I’m going to make it spicier the second go around by keeping jalapeno seeds in the jalapenos. I am excited! Thank you so much! My new favorite go-to for a large serving recipe!! <3