Pozole Verde is the perfect summer-to-fall transitional soup, because of its use of seasonal, late-summer produce like tomatillos and green chilies. The soup’s base is made with poblano chilies, tomatillos, chicken and hominy.
It’s topped with a wide assortment of fresh ingredients- cilantro, red onion, radish, avocado, pepitas, diced tomatoes, or shredded cabbage. You can add or subtract any of these herbs and vegetables, among others, to make it as simple or as elaborate as you like.
Pozole Verde is a flavorful, healthy and satisfying meal that is surprisingly easy to make. It also can be made ahead and reheats beautifully. My good friend Jill first introduced this soup to me and I’ve been a fan ever since.
What is Pozole?
Pozole is a traditional Mexican Stew, made with hominy (corn) and meat, most often pork, in a flavorful rich broth. There are many versions, but the broth is most commonly red (rojo) or green (verde) depending upon regional ingredients and influences.
Pozole Verde is common in Guerrero, using mostly green ingredients like tomatillos, green chilies, and cilantro. One of Pozole’s main components, no matter what the color, is hominy.
Pozole is considered a celebratory dish in Mexico, often made for parties and large groups because it can be prepared easily and in large amounts. It makes for a great feast!
What is hominy?
Hominy is basically corn kernels that have been processed so they lose their outer layer, and the corn kernels puff up when they are boiled. Corn was a sacred plant to Aztecs and the other indigenous people of Mesoamerica and found its way through history into this stew.
If you can find dry hominy, I recommend using it. Canned will work here too- but cooking it from scratch will result in hominy that is more toothsome.
How to make Pozole Verde
Step one
Poach chicken breast in chicken broth ( or chicken stock) seasoned with cumin, coriander, Mexican oregano and salt.
Step two
Blend tomatillos, poblano chilis, jalapeno, tomatillos, onion and garlic with a cup of water, into a smooth sauce to create a flavorful bright green base.
Step three:
Pour the blended Verde sauce, into an oiled pan, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring for about 10-15 minutes.
Step four:
By this time the chicken should be cook through- time to shred!
Step five
Place the shredded chicken back into the broth.
Step six
Pour the cooked Verde sauce into the pot with the chicken and broth and give a stir.
Step seven
Add the cooked hominy.
Expert Tips
Thicken the broth with a cup of the hominy, by blending it up with a little of the soup base.
Wait to blend in the cilantro until right before serving to boost the color here. Ladle a little broth into the blender with the cilantro.
If your broth or soup lacks flavor or depth, it may be due to the chicken stock you are using. Add 1-2 chicken bouillon cubes or even a small splash of soy sauce. You need enough depth to balance the heat here. 🙂
Toppings for Pozole Verde
- thinly sliced onions ( or scallions)
- cilantro
- thinly sliced jalapeno
- sliced radishes
- shredding cabbage or lettuce
- avocado
- sour cream
- crispy tortilla chips ( make them like this)
- lime wedges
Make crispy tortilla strips as one of the toppings for added texture. Just cut corn tortillas into thin strips, spray with spray oil and bake in a 300 F oven till crisp.
Host a Pozole Party!
A fun way to serve this is to create an interactive dining experience for your guests, where they help prepare all of the all toppings for the Pozole Verde, themselves.
As each guest arrives, hand them a beer or margarita, and give them a prepping station in the kitchen. Have cutting boards, bowls and knives ready to go.
Set up an area for them to mingle while they prep. A. kitchen island is great for this! Have one person slice onions, another slice cabbage, and have someone else chop cilantro. Getting everyone involved in the kitchen is a great way to break the ice, especially if guests are meeting for the very first time.
I have found that people actually prefer having something to do with their hands in social situations and giving them a project tends to stave off some of the social anxieties we all experience from time to time.
Mexican Pozole Verde (Green Pozole )
- Prep Time: 30
- Cook Time: 30
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 6-8
- Category: Soup, Main, Gluten-free
- Method: Stove top
- Cuisine: Mexican
Description
Ingredients
- 8 cups flavorful chicken stock (see notes)
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon coriander ( see notes)
- 1 tablespoon dried Mexican oregano
- 1 tablespoon dried Epazote (optional) or sub 2 bay leaves
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or use thighs)
- ——–
- 1 lb tomatillos, husked and halved (about 12 golf ball sized tomatillos)
- 1 large onion, rough chopped
- 3 medium poblano chilies, seeded and sliced
- 1 jalapeno, seeded and halved (add 1 more for extra spicy)
- 6-8 large garlic cloves
- ——-
- 1 T olive oil
- 4 cups cooked hominy- or three 15 oz cans rinsed and drained.
- 1 whole bunch cilantro, tender stems OK
OPTIONAL Toppings: Sliced avocado, Mexican sour cream, lime wedges, crumbled queso fresco, chopped scallions, toasted pepitas, sliced radishes, thinly sliced red onion, chopped cilantro, chopped scallions, shredded cabbage, diced tomatoes, crispy tortilla chips, fresh corn kernels, black beans, hot sauce.
Instructions
Cook the chicken: In a large heavy-bottomed pot or dutch oven, bring the chicken stock, salt, coriander, cumin, oregano, epazote, cumin and pepper to a boil. Add the chicken breasts, cover and simmer gently over low heat until they’re tender and cooked through, about 25 minutes. Transfer the chicken breasts to a plate and shred the meat, skim the stock, and return the chicken back to the stock.
Make the Verde Sauce: In a blender, add one cup of water. Add tomatillos, onion, garlic, poblanos and jalapeno garlic. Blend until smooth, scraping down sides if necessary.
In a skillet, heat the oil and add tomatillo puree and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the sauce turns a deep green, about 10 minutes. To the blender ( it’s ok if its not rinsed) ladle in 1 cup of broth from the chicken soup pot, set aside.
Pour the cooked Verde sauce into the chicken soup pot. Add the 3 cups of the hominy (reserving 1 cup) and bring to a gentle simmer over moderate heat.
Add the cilantro and their tender stems into the blender with the chicken stock, cover tightly with a kitchen towel and blend until smooth. Add the reserved 1 cup of hominy. Blend again until smooth. If you need more liquid to get the blender going, just ladle from the pot. Add this to the soup.
Taste the soup. Season with salt, pepper and cook on warm just until heated through -do not boil, or you will lose the lovely color. If soup lacks depth, add more salt and or a couple of chicken bouillon cubes ( or a couple teaspoons of chicken boullion paste or even a splash of soy sauce). The goal here is to get enough depth in the soup to balance out the tartness from the tomatillos and heat from the chilies.
Serve the Posole in bowls, along with sour cream and any or all of the sides, letting people add whatever toppings they want.
Notes
To make this VEGAN: Sub flavorful veggie broth for the chicken broth. Sub 3 cans black beans or pinto beans for the chicken. You could add other veggies here- sauteed bell pepper or zucchini. The challenge will be getting the broth flavorful enough to hold up to the heat.
If your soup lacks depth, add a couple of extra boullion cubes or teaspoons of this chicken or veggie broth boullion paste. It will help a lot!
Keywords: posole, posole recipe, pozole, chicken pozole verde, chicken pozole, chicken posole, posole verde, posole verde recipe, chicken posole recipe, green posole,
You are my #1 go to for recipes, especially, if I am having guests over for dinner. I like to try new dishes, and use them as my guinea pigs. This recipe said, “Make me!”I looked all over for dried hominy and was only able to find the canned. This is the first recipe I have tried of yours that was just, ” OK.” I added all the extras like you recommended, radishes, avocado, chips, sourcream, lime wedges, etc. And, it was still a bit bland. Maybe my chicken stock was not rich enough? I just don’t know. I do know, 2 days later after aging it was MUCH better with just chips and bit of hot sauce. PS BTW I ended up making something else for our guests…Mexican Minestrone. I still love you and your recipes.
Hi Kathy, thanks for your feedback and sorry your soup lacked flavor. To boost the flavor here I add an additional chicken bouillon cube or sometimes two- see recipe notes. 🙂
I did take a few liberties (aka: shortcuts) with the recipe. I did not have tomatillos or serranos b/c they were not available at my local market. Instead, I used one jar of Trader Joes Tomatillo salsa, one half jar of Fronterra tomatillo salsa and a can of Hatch chiles. Otherwise I followed the recipe. I served the soup with chunks of avocado, squeeze of lime, grated red cabbage, chopped Romas and scallions. It was DEElicious! Everyone had two bowls, except my daughter who had three!
★★★★★
Love your imporvising Betsy! Thanks and gald you enjoyed.
Excellent as stated. No need to modify.
★★★★★
Thanks so much Ben!
Hi Sylvia, I’ve made pozole many times in the past but this is the first time I made your recipe. I had tomatillos, anchos, jalapeños, garlic, and onion from my garden. It was delicious and relatively quick and easy. Thank you for this delightful recipe. Just curious how I might freeze parts of this for future use. For example, could I cook the tomatillos puree and then cool and freeze it? How about the cilantro/hominy puree? This would allow me to make use of my harvest while setting myself up for a quick dinner in the future. Thoughts?
★★★★★
Hi Jen- thanks and glad you enjoyed the recipe. I think freezing the tomatillo puree would work great.And you could use that in many things I think! I’m not sure how the cilantro/ hominy part would hold up- colorwise? It may get brown? But haven’t personally tried this.
Delicious recipe. Amazing bright flavor. I used only 6 cups of broth, and for simplicity, I simmered everything except the cilantro and hominy for 40 minutes. Then I removed the chicken thighs and bay leaves and immersion blended the rest, adding in the cilantro. Then I added back the shredded chicken and hominy. Will definitely make this again. A great way to use some tomatillos from the garden.
★★★★★
This works too! Glad you gave it a go!
Absolutely delicious! Just got done with this one for the week’s meal prep. Perfectly balanced as written. Another hit!
★★★★★
Great to hear Jo!
Hi Sylvia,
Do you have the nutritional information for this recipe?
Thank you so much,
Ellen
I’m so sorry Ellen, our Nutrition Info Plug-In is temporarily down right now – hopefully back up soon!
Hi Sylvia,
First I want to say that I LOVE your site and recipes. I use them often. Wondering if I could substitute fresh corn for the hominy?? It’s not imperative, but fresh always feels better. Not sure if it would change the consistency however as hominy may be way creamier. I am vegan but am making this for my family. Do you think I could “veganize” this with jackfruit and vegetable broth? Thank you for all you do!
★★★★★
Hi Maura- I think you absolutely could veganize this, and corn would be great. You could also add black beans. The secret here is getting the broth really deep and flavorful to balance the heat. 🙂 So use a flavorful veggie broth or add an extra boullion cube. Then. you really could add whatever you want to the broth.
This sounds so good. I’ve been getting away from meat lately. Do you think it would have enough flavor without meat and a good vege broth instead? Thanks for sharing such great recipes!
Yes, if you made sure the veggie broth was super flavorful!
Easy and delicious
★★★★★
Super delicious! My husband asked me to put it in heavy rotation. 🙂
★★★★★
love that you got the hubby approval! Always a good sign. 😉
I made this for my wife (I am the cook of the house!) today and she loved it. But I was on the fence.
Part of that is my fault. I make my broth fresh (whole chicken) and I went over your 8 cups, so a little diluted but I was able to compensate.
Used fresh mild hatches (season just ended here) instead of poblanos because the chili flavor had to be preserved and there was football on so I would not leave the kitchen TV to get in the car….
Thing is, in the food processor, I had the brilliant green. Simmering the 2/3 in the oil gently really dulled the green. By the hominy-1/3 tomatillio blender step, there wasn’t the brilliant green to preserve.
In many traditional Mexican sauce recipes, similar to yours, you always ‘cook’ the fresh sauce in a pan. I’ve made plenty a red sauce whose color got brilliant this way. I’m stumped as to why mine dulled. It could not have been the absence of the dark poblano, because before cooking it had that gorgeous green. Or maybe I’m wrong. Either way she loved it, and so do I, and graci for the great recipe.
I just made this..but doubled everything to make more….Man let me tell u its thr BEST thing ive ever made!!!! Thanks for the recipe!!!!
Oh…. I love hearing that!!!
This was by far the best thing I made in October ! So , comforting ! :0)
thanks…. glad you liked it!
I’ve made Pozole with pork but this was my first attempt at chicken verde. I garnished with radishes and cabbage and the soup was awesome! My wife and I had it for two dinners and a lunch. Thanks for sharing, Sylvia.
Awesome!
Superb. Can’t wait for the 48 hours later version! I did de-skin the chilis (old habit) and removed some of the solids in the chili mixture while blending. Also added a 4th Poblano, simply because I had it. All added up to my wife’s new–perhaps only–favorite Mexican food!
Yay! Glad you and your wife liked it.
It would be nice if you could make it to “PRINT JUST THE RECIPE” instead of having to print 11pages to get the recipe!!! At the top of recipe it states print and it does not go to print mode!!! Otherwise one has to write it out long hand!!!! What a waste of paper!!!
So… I’m not sure what happened? I clicked “print” and only the recipe printed ( 2 pages). Sorry about that. I’m not great with computers, so don’t know what to tell you.
It’s lunch time and I would give anything for a big bowl of this deliciousness right now!
Looks like a great recipe! Sylvia, can this be made ahead? Kept for leftovers? Frozen?
Looks like a great recipe! Can this be made ahead? Does it keep for leftovers? Can it be frozen?
Yes, yes and yes!!
I’m loving that gorgeous green color! Can’t wait to give this a try!
Just finished making this for my poor, sick hubby. It’s a perfect ” feel better” soup. Love the way you kept it fresh!
Totally agree about the soup-season… I’m vegetarian but I always am envious of chicken posole. It’s on nearly every mexican restaurant’s menu.
Ok, I have a great idea for my next party. Looks so good and all the sides, oh so yum.
Thanks Asha!