Tacohuaco

Pozole

Gluten freeDairy freeNo refined sugar

420 min, requires preparation the day before

Mexican
cuisine
SoupSpicyCrowdLunchDinnerChristmas

Margarita learned to love pozole from her grandma and has had the luck and pleasure of cooking it numerous times with her mum in Guadalajara, Mexico. However, after moving to Berlin, she had to rely on my own skills to concoct this traditional Mexican dish.

Pozole is a popular choice for celebrations such as Independence Day, Revolution Day, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve, but it’s also a go-to meal for any day of the week (or every day of the week if you cook enough). While it’s typically served as dinner, in Guadalajara it’s not uncommon to enjoy pozole for breakfast as well. To Mexicans, pozole is more than just a soup — it’s a full dish complete with meat, carbs, a hearty broth, and topped with veggies.

This version is the white pozole, or pozole blanco in Spanish, but you could also find red and green variations.

Ingredients

Yields 20 portions

To cook the pozole

  1. 1½ kg of dried hominy
  2. 600–800 g of pork
    without fat and bones
  3. 600–800 g of pork
    with fat and bones
  4. 1 onion
  5. 1 full head garlic
  6. salt

To serve the pozole

  1. salsa de chiles de árbol
  2. iceberg salad
  3. radishes
  4. onions
  5. limes

You will need

  1. 8 liter pot
  2. big bowl for soaking the hominy
  3. blender

Directions

To cook the pozole

  1. In a big bowl with a lot of water, soak the hominy overnight.
  2. Rinse the hominy.
  3. Peel the onion, and rinse the garlic (remove the outer layers if they are ugly and dirty).
  4. In a very large pot filled up to 2/3 with water set on high heat, put the onion and the garlic, and bring to a boil.
  5. Once the water is boiling, add the hominy, reduce the heat to medium, and cover the pot. Make sure that the water is always boiling, and adjust the heat if necessary. Also, make sure that there’s a lot of water at all times, and add more boiling water if necessary.
  6. Cook until the hominy is tender, for 2–3 hours.
  7. Cut the meat into smaller pieces (about the size of an apple).
  8. Add the meat to the pot, add salt, and cook until the meat is tender (falling from a bone), for about 1–3 hours.

To serve the pozole

  1. Cook salsa de chile de árbol.
  2. Prepare the garnishes. Iceberg salad: cut into thin stripes. Radishes: trim the ends, and cut them into small dice. Onions: peel, and cut into small dice. Limes: quarter.
  3. Serve the pozole plain with all the garnishes — salsa chili de árbol, iceberg salad, radishes, onions, and limes — on the side, so each person can choose what they like and how much.

Notes & tips

If your pot is not big enough for cooking the hominy and the meat, split it into two pots following the recipe individually in each.
The pork you choose for the pozole is essential to its taste. It needs some bones and fat to make the broth reacher and tastier. Try different combinations of meat until you find the best one for you. We use a piece of the neck, bones of the back or the leg, and even pieces of ears or the mouth, if we can find them, to add the extra fattiness.
Serving your pozole doesn’t have strict rules, typically it has vegetables, lime, and spicy sauce, but in different regions of Mexico, it is served differently.
Store your pozole leftovers in the fridge overnight, and always boil it for several minutes before serving, otherwise the hominy with the fat of the pig ferment and ruin the entire pot.
The easiest way to peel garlic is to smash it: put a clove of garlic on a cutting board, put your chef’s knife on top of it so the blade side lays on the clove, and hit the side of the knife with your hand. Now you could peel the clove.

Margarita has learned this recipe from her abuelita.

Explore ingredients

Ingredients explorer

NameKindSeasonContains
Chile de árbolVegan
Dried hominyVegan
GarlicVegan
Iceberg saladVegan
LimeVegan
OnionVegan
OnionVegan
PorkMeat
PorkMeat
RadishVegan
October
November
SaltVegan

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