This slow cooker pork posole is an easy riff on a classic Mexican expression of comfort food. The robust stew includes meltingly tender shredded pork along with hominy and onions that are gently coaxed to sweetness. If you’re lucky enough to have some leftover posole, goodness gracious, the options are endless. Harness it as a burrito or taco filling, plop it atop some rice, or simply slap a fried egg on top and consider it breakfast.–Angie Zoobkoff
What is posole?
Posole is the English spelling of pozole, a Mexican stew made with pork or chicken and hominy in a broth that’s nuanced with chile pepper and gilded with any number of ingredients, whether radish, cabbage, avocado, cilantro, or lime.
Slow Cooker Pork Posole
Equipment
- 5- to 6-quart slow cooker
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 1/4 pounds boneless pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into 4-inch (10-cm) pieces
- Coarse salt
- 1 medium white onion (about 1 cup), chopped, plus more for serving
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 4 cups canned chicken broth or homemade low-sodium chicken stock
- Two (15-ounce) cans hominy, drained and rinsed
For serving
- Chopped avocado
- Sliced radishes
- Fried corn tortilla strips or tortilla chips
- Lime wedges
Instructions
- Preheat a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker on high until warm, about 20 minutes. Season the pork with salt.
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, warm 1 tablespoon oil. Add the pork to the skillet and cook, turning as needed, until the pieces are browned on all sides, about 8 minutes. Transfer to the slow cooker.
- In the same skillet, reduce the heat to medium-low and heat 1 tablespoon oil. Add the onion, garlic, and chili powder and sauté until softened, about 6 minutes.
- Add 2 cups broth and cook, stirring and scraping up browned bits with a wooden spoon. Transfer everything in the skillet to the slow cooker along with 2 cups broth. Cover and cook until the meat is very tender, 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low.
- Using tongs or a slotted spoon transfer the pork to a large bowl and, using 2 forks, shred the pork. Return the pork to the slow cooker and stir in the hominy. Stir to combine and to warm the pork. Season with salt to taste.
- Serve the posole with avocado, radishes, tortilla strips, and lime on the side for each person to add as desired.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Recipe Testers’ Reviews
I really enjoyed this easy slow cooker pork posole—it had a lot of flavor (plus a good amount of heat) for minimal effort! There was a nice variety of textures in the dish between the hominy, the avocado, the tortilla chips, and the soup. Definitely a great weeknight dinner as long as you run the slow cooker the day before you plan to eat it.
I had a slight oversight that ended up working out perfectly fine—I missed that the shoulder should have been cut into 4-inch pieces. I left it as one chunk, browned it a bit, and then added it to the slower cooker (which I oiled a bit before preheating for 15 minutes). After 4 hours on high the meat was falling-apart tender. I didn’t even have to remove it to shred, although you certainly could do so if easier.
I also enjoyed it with a bit of shredded cotija and some diced poblano from the garden in addition to the suggested accompaniments.
Slow cooker pork posole is new to my culinary library but, like many slow cooker soup recipes, the sum is much more than its parts. I could smell this would be good, but 8 hours of warm magic transformed the pork, garlic, onion, and chili powder into a stew of meaty broth slicked with a warm shimmer of fat that I wanted to devour. The nubs of hominy added an earthy corn flavor that’s almost like ready-made southwest gnocchi.
Quick question: for the chili powder, do you recommend only ground chili powder or a chili powder seasoning mix similar to the one the link goes to? Many thanks!
JP, either will work here. Ground chili powder will probably give you the most authentic-tasting version, but if you’ve got a chili powder blend on hand, that’s completely fine to use.
How would you incorporate dry hominy into this recipe? Thank you
Rodster, if you added dried hominy directly to the slow cooker, I don’t think it would cook through in the same time as the pork. I would recommend soaking the hominy overnight, then boiling it separately on the stove until it’s cooked. At that point you can add it to the slow cooker in step 5. You can even cook the hominy in advance and keep it in the fridge for a few days.
I made this weekend! It was tasty! I’ve never had whole hominy before, only grits. We wrapped it up in tortillas, and it was so good. This, I might add, was the only thing I made in a slow cooker that my husband would eat-even had seconds!
Thank you, Carol! We are so pleased that this is worthy of seconds. Please do let us know what you make next.