How To Make Pollo Con Crema

Pollo Con Crema is a creamy, saucy chicken dish with a little kick from chipotle chiles. This dish gets a sweet creaminess from using Mexican or Central American Crema, similar to American sour cream but sweeter. We find this dish in Mexican restaurants in the United States, but rarely see it in Mexico. The dish originated in South America and is similar to the Mexican Rajas Con Crema, which is Poblano chili strips in a cream sauce. Given the ingredients and flavors we can see why it’s commonly thought of as a Mexican dish.

This recipe can be made gluten free by using gluten free flour, such as one-to-one flour.

Watch a Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making Pollo Con Crema:

The Ingredients:

For the chicken:

• 1 Chicken Breast cut into strips(we use just one to share but you can use more)
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1/2 cup flour (we use a 1 to 1 gluten free flour)
• 1 Tbls butter
• 2 Tbls olive oil

For the creamy sauce:

• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 Cup Onion, diced
• 3 Jalapeño Peppers, veins and seeds removed, diced medium
• 5 Cloves Garlic, diced
• 1/2 tsp Dried Oregano
• 1/2 Cup Poblano Chiles, cut into pieces, or 1 can Ortega Chiles
• 2 tsp Chipotle Chiles
• 1 1/4 cup Chicken Stock
• 1 1/4 cup Mexican Crema
• 1 Tbls cilantro or parsley for garnish

Chicken Breast

We will start this dish by cutting our chicken breast into fairly thin strips and lay them out on a plate. This recipe is for two people and we are just using one chicken breast. You can easily scale up the amount of sauce and use more chicken.

Coat the Chicken With Spices

We will combine 1/2 teaspoon of cumin, 1 teaspoon of chile powder and 1 teaspoon of salt in a bowl, mix it well and then sprinkle half of it all over the chicken. Then we’ll turn the chicken pieces over and sprinkle the rest of our spice mix over the other side.

Dredge the Chicken In Flour

Next we will dredge the chicken through the flour, getting both sides coated. You’ll just want to do this one piece at a time, making sure the whole piece gets evenly coated. Then you can put the coated piece on a plate and do the next one.

Cook the Chicken

Now we are going to cook our chicken. Put the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat and then add some oil. The oil raises the burn temperature of the butter to help keep from burning it.

2 Minutes On Each Side

Next we will add our chicken to the pan. We just want to cook the first side for about 2 minutes just to get it cooked a little. Then we will turn it over.

Remove the Chicken From the Pan

After flipping the chicken we will cook the second side for another 2 minutes and then remove it from the pan and put it on a plate, reserving it until later.

Add More Oil

Next we will add a little more oil to the pan. We want to keep all the drippings from cooking the chicken as this will retain all those good flavors in our Pollo Con Crema.

Cook Onion and Jalapeño

Once the pan is hot again we will add our onions and jalapeños. We like to cut those into a medium dice so they keep some structure in the sauce. We’ll want to cook this until the onions become translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add the Garlic

Next we add the garlic. We like to chop the garlic into relatively large pieces so they also have some substance when the sauce is all done. We are adding the garlic after the onions are cooked so it doesn’t burn. Garlic tends to cook a bit quicker than the onions so it doesn’t need as much time.

Add Oregano

After adding the garlic we will add the oregano. You can use Mexican Oregano if you have it or just regular Italian Oregano. Stir that in and let it all cook together for a couple minutes.

Add the Chiles

Then we will add our chiles. We like to use fresh or frozen Farmers’ Market poblano chiles for this, both green and red for some color, but you could use canned chiles in a pinch. Cut the chiles into 1 inch pieces. This adds a nice texture floating around in our Pollo Con Crema.

Add Chipotle

Next we add our chipotle. The amount you want to add really depends on how hot you want the end result to be. One chipotle is about 2 tablespoons of chipotle in adobo sauce. That’s enough to give the dish a little something without being overwhelming. We usually find chipotle in adobo sauce in a can or jar. We use a little for a recipe and freeze the rest of the can in 2 tablespoon cubes.

Chicken Broth

After stirring in the chipotle we will add our chicken broth. We make our own broth from chicken, turkey or duck bones and freeze it for when we need it.

Cook For 10 Minutes

Then we need to let this cook for a while. We want the broth to reduce by about half, which should take about 10 minutes or so. This will give time for all those good flavors to marry.

Add the Crema

Then we will add the crema. There are quite a few different kinds of crema, each with it’s own slightly different flavor. We like the flavor and consistency of the Crema Salvadoreña. Crema Mexicana is fine as well. In a pinch you can just use American sour cream and it will be fine.

Cook For 10 Minutes

Stir in the crema and let everything cook about ten minutes more. You should now have a beautiful creamy dish ready to serve.

We believe the most common way to serve Pollo Con Crema would be with rice but we love it with mashed potatoes or even pasta. Serve it with a side of Esquites or Corn Salsa and, for more zing, some Morita Salsa.

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Here are some other Mexican inspired chicken dishes you might like:

• Green Chile Chicken
• Lacquered Chicken
• Tinga de Pollo

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