Slow cooker chile verde
Pork shoulder braised all day in a tangy tomatillo and pepper sauce until it falls into tender shreds, for bowls, burritos or tacos.
- 510 min total
- 35 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 6
- About $2.18 a serving
- 530 calories
- Good the next day
- Dairy-free
Dolly says: Make the full amount. It’s just as good for lunch the next day.
Ingredients
For 6 servings.
- 2½ lb pork shoulder, cut into 2-inch chunks
- 1½ lb tomatillos, husked, rinsed and quartered
- 2 poblano peppers, seeded and chopped
- 2 jalapeños, seeded and chopped
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 cup chicken broth
- ½ cup cilantro, chopped
- 1 lime, juiced
- 6 flour tortillas, warmed (optional)
From your pantry
- 1½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp dried oregano
Each serving has about 530 calories, 34 g protein, 14 g carbs and 38 g fat, and costs about $2.18 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No yellow onions? White onions or red onions work.
- No chicken broth? Vegetable broth or bone broth works.
- No cilantro? Fresh parsley works.
- No limes? Lemons work.
- No flour tortillas? Whole wheat tortillas work.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Cut the pork into 2-inch chunks, off any big pieces of fat, and toss them with the salt and cumin.
Trim. Trimming means cutting off the parts you don’t eat, like stem ends, tough bits or thick fat. It keeps chewy or bitter bits out of the finished dish.
How you’ll know: What’s left is the good part, with no dry ends, woody stems or thick white fat.
Food safety: Wash your hands, the board and the knife with hot soapy water after touching raw meat, and don’t rinse raw chicken in the sink.
Heat the oil in a large over medium-high heat and the pork in two batches, about 5 minutes per batch, then move it to the slow cooker.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Brown. Browning means cooking until the outside turns brown, which is where a lot of savory flavor comes from. Give food room and time without stirring, or it steams and stays gray.
How you’ll know: The food looks brown rather than gray, and the kitchen smells toasty and savory.
Medium-high heatTimer: 10 min
Dolly’s tip: The pork doesn’t need to cook through, just get a good brown crust.Husk, and quarter the tomatillos, and the poblanos, jalapeños and onion.
Rinse. Rinsing means running cold water over rice or canned beans in a strainer while you swish them around. It washes off loose starch and can liquid, so rice cooks up fluffy and beans taste clean.
How you’ll know: The water running out goes from cloudy to mostly clear; it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Chop. Chopping means cutting food into bite-size pieces that don’t need to be neat. Keep them roughly the same size so everything cooks evenly.
How you’ll know: Your pieces are about half an inch and roughly alike, even if none of them are pretty.
Add the tomatillos, peppers, onion, garlic, oregano and broth to the slow cooker and stir.
Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours, until the pork falls apart when pressed with a fork.
Timer: 480 min
Food safety: Steak, pork chops and other whole cuts are safe at 145°F in the middle, then let them rest for 3 minutes before cutting.
Mash the soft tomatillos and peppers into the sauce with a potato masher, and pull some of the pork into shreds with two forks.
Stir in the cilantro and lime juice, taste for salt, and serve in bowls or wrapped in warm tortillas.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
