How To Make Tinga de Pollo

Tinga de Pollo, a lively Mexican meat dish gets it’s flavor and spicy kick from Chipotle Chiles. This is one of our favorite fillings at Mexican restaurants for tacos or enchiladas. It consists of shredded chicken in a chipotle sauce. It can be fairly spicy, which is just how Mr Cook likes it.

In this recipe we will cook some chicken thighs, making some chicken broth at the same time. We will also incorporate 3 dried Guajillo or Pasilla chiles along with 2 Chipotle Chiles in Adobo Sauce.

This recipe is naturally gluten free.

Watch a Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making Tinga de Pollo:

The Ingredients

• 4 Chicken Thighs
• 1 Chopped onion
• 4 Garlic Cloves
• 1 Carrot, Chopped
• 1 tsp Salt
• Water to cover in the pot

Sauce

• 1 lb tomatoes
• 3 dried chiles (Guajilla or Pasilla)
• 2 Chipotle Chiles in Adobo Sauce
• Several Garlic Cloves
• 1 tsp Thyme
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1 tsp Mexican Oregano
• Carrots from the chicken stock
• 1 Cup Chicken Stock

Tinga

• Bacon grease
• 2 Onions, Diced small
• 3 Cloves Garlic, chopped
• Shredded Chicken
• 3/4 tsp Cumin
• Sauce

Cook the Chicken and Make the Broth

We start out by cooking our chicken and making the broth for this recipe. If you already have shredded chicken and some broth you can skip this step and get right to the sauce. Put 4 chicken thighs in a stock pot and add carrot, onion, garlic and salt. Add water to cover. We’ll need 2 cups of broth for the Tinga so use at least that much water. Put the pot on a burner on high until it starts to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Then we’ll take the chicken out, strain off the broth, reserving the carrots and discarding the rest of the solids.

Shred the Chicken

When the chicken cools enough to handle, shred it. We just do this by hand and it’s fairly easy to do.

Prepare the Dried Chiles

While the chicken is cooking we can get the chiles ready. We need to rinse off the guajillos and remove the seeds. We’ll tear these into smaller pieces so you don’t have to be very careful with them when removing the seeds. In this recipe we are going to cook the chiles along with the tomatoes so we won’t be soaking them after taking the seeds out.

Chop the Tomatoes

We can also chop up the tomatoes. We’ll be blending this so just cutting them in quarters is going to be fine.

Cook Tomatoes and Chiles

Add the tomatoes and chiles to a pot. Add 1/2 cup of water to the pot and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes. You want the tomatoes to cook down, the chiles to soften and most of the liquid to evaporate.

Chipotle Chiles

We also need two chipotles in adobo sauce. These usually come in a can and can be found in the Mexican food section of a grocery store. We hardly ever use a whole can so we freeze the rest in 2 Tablespoon cubes for later use. Take 2 chiles out of the can and chop them up. We have recently found chipotle chiles in adobo sauce in jars. These chiles are already chopped up so you can just use a couple tablespoons, seal the jar back up and keep it in the refrigerator.

Blend the Sauce

Everything is now ready to assemble. Put the tomatoes and chiles in a blender. Add the carrots from the chicken broth, garlic, chipotles, spices, and one cup of chicken broth. Blend until smooth and we have our sauce.

Cook the Onions

Now we are going to assemble and cook everything. Dice up two onions in a fairly small dice. Heat some bacon fat, lard, or oil in a soup pot over medium heat. I like using the animal fat for this for added flavor. When it’s hot add the two diced onions. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, until the onions are translucent and have softened.

Add Chicken, Cumin and Sauce

Once the onions have cooked down a bit we can add the shredded chicken, 3/4 tsp of cumin and the contents of the blender. Stir this all together well so all the chicken is immersed in the sauce. We want to cook this until the liquid is mostly cooked out or absorbed into the meat, which should take about an hour.

Tinga de Pollo is Ready

Once this reduces to the desired consistency – not too wet, not too dry – we have our tinga de pollo to use. Some suggestions are as taco meat, enchilada filling, and stuffed poblano filling along with some cheese and maybe corn.

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Here are some other Mexican inspired dishes we like to make.

• Enchiladas
• Molé Enchiladas
• Tinga de Pollo
• Molé Manchamanteles With Chicken
• Molé Amarillo With Chicken and Vegetables
• Al Pastor Tacos
• Chile Rellenos
• Pollo Con Crema
• BBQ Beef Ribs With Pineapple Salsa
• Camarones a la Diabla
• Green Chile Chicken
• Molé Moco (Mexican Loco Moco)

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