Colorado Style Pork Green Chili

The best recipe for Colorado style pork green chili, with tender shredded pork and spicy green chiles. Enjoy this classic high altitude comfort food with a side of tortilla chips and your favorite chili toppings, or to smother tacos, burritos and scrambled eggs.

You might also love these high altitude recipes for classic sweet cornbread, homemade flour tortillas, and crispy pan pizza.

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What is Pork Green Chili?

Pork green chili, also known as green chili pork stew, is a traditional southwestern stew from New Mexico, made with mild or hot Hatch green chiles, spices, juicy pork, and sometimes potatoes, slow cooked until tender. Colorado is famous for this dish, and we’ll eat pork green chile on pretty much everything, from eggs, tacos, smothered burritos and rice, to cheesy smothered french fries, tater tots, quesadillas or burgers.

But it’s as much the main dinner event as it is a sauce or condiment, and there’s nothing more comforting than a big bowl of green chile loaded with tender shredded pork and served with everyone’s favorite toppings. It’s great on a cold day, served along side some homemade flour tortillas or sweet cornbread with honey.

Today’s recipe is moderately spicy with the addition of a jalapeno pepper and crushed red pepper flakes, but it’s completely adaptable to your own tastes. While I thought it tasted fairly spicy the day I made it, the heat had mellowed quite a bit by the next day, and I wouldn’t have minded another jalapeno for a little more heat. But you can make it mild or hot, and you can even add potatoes or beans if you like. Some people add tomatoes, so the color is more orange than green, but I prefer mine without tomatoes (or just a very small amount).

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

Green Chiles

Hatch green chile peppers are grown in Hatch Valley, in southern New Mexico, and are considered the premium green chile pepper of choice to use when making green chili pork stew. If you can get your hands on some fresh Hatch chiles and want to try roasting them for your dish, then go for it! Otherwise, you can buy canned Hatch green chiles (mild or hot). A can of these chiles will generally only contain chiles, water, salt and citric acid.

Green Chile Sauce

The green chile sauce I used contains Hatch chiles, tomatoes, citric acid, onion, rice flour, salt, garlic and lime, so it will add a bit more depth to the flavor profile of this recipe. You can generally get mild or medium green chile sauce, and I used medium.

Salsa Verde

The flavor of green salsa or salsa verde will vary greatly between brands, but the one I used contains tomatillos, onion, peppers, corn starch, salt, vinegar and cilantro. Again, this will add flavor and a bit more body to the chile. I used a medium salsa, but you can also get mild.

Chicken Stock

I recommend using low sodium chicken stock or broth, or you may need to reduce some of the added salt.

Onion

Use a sweet yellow onion for the best flavor.

Jalapeno

A diced jalapeno pepper will add some really nice heat to this dish, but you can leave it out if you like a milder heat. I only added one jalapeno, but I wouldn’t have minded two.

Spices

You’ll need minced garlic, cumin, salt, black pepper, smoked paprika and crushed red pepper flakes.

Pork

Look for a small to medium sized pork shoulder or pork butt at your grocery store. Either with or without the bone is fine. If you can only find a large bone-in pork shoulder, just cut off what you don’t need and freeze it for later. Be sure to trim off the excess fat before cooking, so your finished dish isn’t overly heavy and greasy with the rendered pork fat.

Don’t use pre-chopped pork shoulder, because you won’t be able to shred the little bite sized pieces, which is a major pet peeve of mine. Honestly, the flavor and texture of the chile is so much better if you shred the pork after it cooks in the liquid.

Butter + Flour

To thicken the chile ever so slightly and give it more body, I added a simple roux or paste made of butter and all purpose flour.

For a gluten free version, you can use corn starch instead of flour, and I’ve even seen masa flour used. Or, if you prefer to leave this step out altogether, use a little less chicken broth from the start, and just add more broth if the chile is too thick.

Lime

A squeeze of lime juice adds brightness to balance the heat of the peppers and spices, and rounds out all the flavors.

Instructions

• In your crock pot, combine the green chiles, green chile sauce, salsa verde, chicken stock, diced onion, diced jalapeno, minced garlic, cumin, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and crushed red pepper flakes.
• Trim the excess fat off the pork shoulder, and cut it into 3 or 4 large chunks. Add the pork to the crock pot.
• Cover and cook on high for 2 hours, then on low for 5-6 hours, or until the pork is very tender. Using tongs, remove the pork from the crock pot, use two forks to shred the pork, then return the shredded pork to the crock pot.
• In a small saucepan, melt the butter, then whisk in the flour to make a paste-like roux. Ladle about 1/4 cup of the hot liquid from the crock pot into the roux, whisking it in until smooth. Continue to add more liquid to the roux, 1/4 cup at a time, whisking it smooth each time, until you’ve added about 1 1/2 cups of liquid. Now pour the roux into the crock pot. Cover the crock pot, and let it cook for another 30-60 minutes, until slightly thickened.
• Turn off the heat, and squeeze the juice of 1 lime into the chile before serving. Taste and add more salt, if needed.
• To serve as a stew, top it with your favorite chile toppings, such as grated cheese, sour cream, diced onions, diced tomatoes, guacamole or avocados, chopped cilantro, Aleppo pepper, pickled jalapenos and extra wedges of lime. Serve with tortilla chips, soft flour tortillas or warm corn bread on the side.

Recipe Variations

Add Beans or Potatoes

Some recipes for pork green chile add chunks of potatoes for a heartier, more stew like quality. I love chili with beans, though, and while it might not be traditional, I like to add some canned white beans (usually great northern beans) to my bowl of green chile. I recommend keeping the beans separate, so that you can still use the green chili without beans as a sauce or condiment.

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