How To Make Pollo Pozole Rojo

Pollo Pozole Rojo is the red version of this traditional Mexican soup. It gets the color from dried chiles. We made this dish recently in Mexico where we had access to fresh hominy and rotisserie chicken. At home we use dried hominy to make pozole. This dish is often made with pork as the meat.

This recipe is naturally gluten free.

Watch a Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making Pollo Pozole Rojo:

The Ingredients For Pollo Pozole Rojo

• The breasts and bones of 1 Rotisserie Chicken
• 3 Anchos
• 3 Guajillos
• 3 de Arbols
• 1/2 Kilo Fresh Hominy
• 1/2 White Onion
• 4 Cloves Garlic
• 1 tsp Mexican Oregano
• 1/2 tsp Cumin

Shred the Chicken

We will start by shredding the breast meat from the chicken. We’ll use an already cooked rotisserie chicken but you could start with raw chicken and cook it yourself. Cover the shredded chicken and set aside for later. We want to keep all the bones from the chicken to make the chicken broth.

Make the Broth

Put all the chicken bones in a pot with 4 cups of water and some onion pieces and let it boil for 45 minutes. Strain the broth and discard the bones.

The Hominy

In Mexico we were able to find fresh hominy so that is what we used. We rinsed it very well to remove excess starch and then cooked it in the chicken broth for 30 minutes before adding our other ingredients. We really liked the texture and flavor of the fresh hominy. At home we like to use dried hominy. We’ll soak it overnight, rinse it thoroughly and simmer it in water for 2 hours before adding it to our pozole. Dried hominy is smaller than either the fresh or the canned and has a nice texture that is not too starchy.

You can use canned hominy if it’s all you can find. We find the texture to be too starchy, even after rinsing it thoroughly. We’ll stick with either fresh or dried hominy.

Prepare the Chiles, Onion and Garlic

Next we will remove the stems and seeds from the anchos and guajillos and remove the stems from the arbols. We’ll also cut the onion into chunks and peel the garlic.

Cook the Chiles

We will put the chiles, onion and garlic in a pan with just enough water to cover. Then we’ll bring it to a boil and let cook for 15 minutes.

Cook the Hominy and Mexican Oregano

While the chiles are cooling we can put our chicken broth, Mexican oregano and hominy in a pan over medium heat and let that cook for 1/2 hour.

Blend the Chiles

When the chiles have cooled a bit we will put the contents of the pan, onions, chiles, garlic and water, into the blender. We will add the cumin as well. We’ll blend this until it is smooth. You’ll want to get the chile skins chopped up so blend this thoroughly.

Add the Chile Paste To the Pot

Once the hominy has cooked for 30 minutes we will add the chile paste to the soup. We’ll just tip it in and stir well, giving us a nice, colorful soup.

Add the Chicken

We will let the pot return to a boil and then we’ll add the shredded chicken. We’ll stir in the chicken and let the pot come back up to a simmer. At this point you can check the consistency. We want our pozole to be more of a soup than a stew. If it is too thick you can add some more chicken broth, or even just water to thin it.

Serving Pozole Rojo With Toppings

Traditional pozole is served with a variety of toppings. You can use anything from avocados, radishes, salsa, fruit, cilantro, lime, tortilla, and the list goes on. We’ll start by putting some of our pozole rojo in a soup bowl.

Top With Avocado

We’ll add avocado pieces to one side of the top of the soup. A fan of avocado slices looks lovely for this. We just cut it into chunks.

And Corn Salsa

Next we’ll put on some corn salsa. This will give us some brightness and contrasting flavors with the fresh tomato.

Add Pineapple

One of our favorite things to add to this is pineapple. This gives us some acid and adds brightness to the dish. Lime juice is usually used for this purpose and you can just serve with lime wedges but we find that pineapple takes this to a whole new level. We discovered how much pineapple augments the flavor of dried chiles when we learned how to make Molé Manchamanteles. This flavor combination was so unique and delicious it expanded our library of combinations. Fresh pineapple is easy to come by in Mexico so we just cut some in small chunks. You could definitely use canned pineapple for this.

Add Cilantro

We’ll put a few cilantro leaves on our pozole, adding a beautiful green color to it all and then we are ready to serve.

You might also like our recipe for Pozole Verde, which uses tomatillos and green chiles instead of dried chiles for the flavoring and color.

If you enjoyed this recipe subscribe to our Youtube Channel and share on social media.

Here are some other Mexican inspired recipes you can try:

• Classic Molé Rojo
• Chile Rellenos
• Al Pastor Tacos
• Tinga de Pollo
• Enchiladas

Print