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Made with shredded chicken and hominy in a comforting red chile broth, this Slow Cooker Chicken Posole is easy to make and full of authentic Mexican flavors to warm you up! (gluten free)
It finally happened. I made a dish that I never thought I would make without the step-by-step instructions from my parents. I made posole!
If you’ve never heard of posole, you’re not alone. It’s not a dish that is normally found at Mexican restaurants, at least not in the United States. and definitely not in Pittsburgh.
What is posole?
Posole (which translates to hominy in English) is a Mexican chile soup or stew traditionally made with pork and hominy covered in a chile broth. There are countless variations of this dish, such as:
- some made in a red chile broth
- some with green chiles and tomatillos as the base (like this Chicken Pozole Verde)
- some with no chiles at all (why, God, why?!)
- some made with pork (like this traditional Red Posole)
- some with chicken
- some with no meat at all
And just so you know, I plan on making ALL those variations for you at some point. This is only the beginning. I’m getting excited just talking about it.
Posole is kind of a big deal in my house. My parents don’t make it every day, every week or even every month. It’s usually made on special occasions when the whole family is together, like birthdays and holidays so my Mom or Dad can make a huge batch and feed everyone for days. And I mean dayyyysss.
And while I’ve seen my parents make this soup probably hundreds of times by now, I had never attempted to make it myself…until now.
I must say that I’ve definitely taken some liberties with my parents’ recipe.
First of all, they’ve never made posole in the slow cooker. I, on the other hand, wanted to create this dish as easily as possible and so I knew the crock pot would be perfect for the job.
Second, my parents’ usually make the red chile base specifically for their posole. But not me. Again, because I’m lazy, I used a batch of my Red Enchilada Sauce that I had in the fridge. My sauce is still homemade, it’s insanely easy to make and most importantly, it’s still has all the same flavors of the red chile broth that are in my parents’ posole.
But a word of caution – while you could certainly use store-bought enchilada sauce instead of my enchilada sauce recipe, I don’t recommend it. It truly doesn’t have the same depth of flavor and just isn’t as tasty as the real stuff. If you’re hesitant to make enchilada sauce just for this recipe, I suggest making a double or even triple batch and storing it in the freezer so you can use it again for future recipes like these:
- Red Chicken Enchiladas
- Easy Red Chilaquiles
- Chicken Enchilada Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
- Chicken Enchilada Roll-Ups
The right sauce makes a huge difference.
How to serve slow cooker posole
Once the crock pot posole is ready to go, it’s usually served with radishes, cilantro, finely shredded cabbage, limes, dried oregano, red chile flakes, white onions and even avocados.
For these photos, I just used radishes, limes and cilantro, but I frequently also top it with shredded cabbage. It’s adds a nice crunch that is just delightful.
I truly hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do.
More Mexican recipes you’ll love
Slow Cooker Chicken Posole
Ingredients
For the posole
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into large chunks
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 batch Red Enchilada Sauce (or 2 1/2 cups store-bought red enchilada sauce)
- 1 shallot, finely diced
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic (about 4 cloves)
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 25-ounce cans white hominy, drained and rinsed
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- salt and black pepper, to taste
For the toppings and mix-ins (optional)
- finely shredded cabbage, lime juice, sliced radishes, cilantro
Instructions
- Add the chicken, chicken broth, enchilada sauce, shallot, chili power, minced garlic, cumin powder, and salt to the slow cooker. Mix until well combined.
- Cover and cook for 7 1/2 hours on low or 3 1/2 hours on high.
- Using a slotted spoon, remove chicken from slow cooker and place onto a large plate or cutting board. Shred using two forks.
- Add in the shredded chicken, hominy and oregano. Cover and cook for another 30 minutes.
- Serve posole in bowls with lime juice, radishes, cilantro, finely shredded cabbage and other toppings.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I’ve always used Las Palmas brand red chili sauce. It works n tastes as good as any homemade sauce. Taste varies with people but in menudo or posole it is bomb n easy to use.
Thank you for sharing this awesome recipe, we have made this twice and just love it! Tastes just like the posole we enjoyed in Ajijic. Would give this 12 stars out of 10 if I could.
I plan on making this for Christmas and doubling the recipe.
Question?
Should I also double the Enchilada sauce recipe you have for the posole? It’s my first time making this dish and I’m excited and nervous! Don’t want to mess it up. Thank you!!!
Yes, you should double the enchilada sauce since that acts as a broth. I hope you love it and Merry Christmas!
I love your recipe! My husband doesn’t eat pork for cultural reasons and we’ve only ever made pork pozole so this was great for him. He loved it as well! Also I want to just add that if someone doesn’t want to make the red enchilada sauce, to use las palmas red Chile sauce but NOT the enchilada version. It’ll work in a pinch. My grandma used it in her pozole when she had to make more for surprise guests and didn’t have time to make her own sauce!
This is the best most easy pozole recipe. It’s delish. My go to meal. Thank you!!
I made this recipe yesterday for friends that adore posole. The enchilada sauce was key to this five star recipe. I’m fortunate to have a super market that carried everything I needed to make it. My only advice is to roughly chop the chocolate triangle called for before blending or processing. It got stuck under the blade of my processor and caused a mess with the sauce spitting out of the top and all over the backsplash. Thankful I didn’t lose much before I figured out what the problem was. I just chopped it up more and everything blended up great. Thank you Isabella for a recipe I’ll use again and again!
I’m about to make this recipe and was wondering what size crock pot you used.
I used a 6-quart slow cooker.
Easy and delicious! Do you have the calorie count per serving? Thank you.
Hi Barb, I just added the nutritional information to the recipe. Hope that helps!
I have made this recipe multiple times for my household, friends, co-workers, new mothers… The only variation I made was preparing and using the dry hominy from Rancho Gordo. The texture is much better than canned hominy.
(In Durham, NC it is easy to gather all the ingredients.)
The enchilada sauce really makes this dish. I expanded the use of the enchilada sauce to soups, stews, beans and rice…
So happy I found your recipe–it helps me appear a better cook than I really am.
Note: I used the left over water from soaking the chilis to steam collards.
My go-to pozole recipe now! Next time I hope to find the chiles in Maine to make the enchilada sauce from scratch, but until then I’ll have to use canned. I also used frozen chicken breasts and pulled out the whole breasts to shred. So easy. So delicious. So happy!
Yay! That makes me so happy to hear! Thank you so much for your comment 🙂
can i make it without thw shallot never used that or idk were i can find it
Hi! You can buy shallots at most grocery stores but you can omit them for this recipe if you’d like!