This Instant Pot pork stew with hominy has that tender cooked-all-day comfort vibe, except it’s ready in just a little more than an hour. You’re welcome.
*What is Hominy?
Also known as giant corn, hominy is puffy kernels of corn that have undergone a special chemical process. If you’ve eaten a tortilla, you’ve had nixtamalizated corn—the process of soaking corn in an alkaline solution of calcium hydroxide made from slaked lime, lye, or wood ash. Complicated, we know. But the takeaway is that nixtamalizated corn has been stripped of its husk. For hominy, the kernels are left whole, resulting in the softer, more gelatinous ingredient you’re familiar with.
Instant Pot Pork Stew With Hominy
Special Equipment: Instant Pot or pressure cooker
Ingredients
Directions
In the insert of an Instant Pot or pressure cooker, combine the pork, onion, hominy and its juices, water, garlic, chipotle chiles, adobo sauce, ancho chile powder, cumin, oregano, and salt.
Secure the lid on the Instant Pot or pressure cooker. Close the pressure-release valve. Cook over high pressure for 30 minutes. At the end of the cooking time, allow the pressure to release naturally, 15 to 20 minutes. The pork should be very tender.
Taste the stew and season with additional ancho chile powder and salt, if needed. Garnish with the cilantro and serve.
Recipe Testers' Reviews
I was excited to see this Instant Pot pork stew with hominy recipe. For one, I have a one year old running around and two, traditional posole recipes that I've seen are quite involved.
Now I do have to be upfront and say that I am not exactly sure what a traditional posole should taste like. But this recipe turned out great. There was minimal preparation and it was ready in time for dinner.
I garnished this with lime, avocado, and pork rinds.
There are times when I have success with an Instant Pot recipe, and I wonder why I ever make the dish the “regular” way. We had a test recipe a few years ago, roasted green pozole with chicken, which we adore. After making this pork and hominy stew, I remembered that I haven’t made the other posole in quite a while. I now want to try and adapt the other recipe to the Instant Pot, using this recipe as a guideline.
This recipe is solid, and one I’ll make when I have an extra chunk of pork butt in the freezer. This recipe calls for 3 or 4 garlic cloves. Being fond of garlic, I used 4 cloves.
The first thing that needs to be said is that the chipotles didn't cook down. I didn’t chop or smash the chilies, because the recipe didn’t say to, and I wanted to follow the recipe as written. When I opened the Instant Pot, the chipotles looked exactly like they did when I put them into the pot prior to cooking. At that point I chopped the chilies and put them back into the stew. Yowza! This was spicy. We had company for dinner, and everyone agreed that I should have only put in 1. Thankfully, I had sour cream which tempered the heat successfully.
I used an old-fashioned pressure cooker for this recipe. I added all the hominy to the pressure cooker as I don't care for al dente hominy at all, I prefer it to be soft. Once it came up to pressure, I cooked it over medium-low heat, just enough to keep the pressure steady for 30 minutes. It took 18 minutes to cool down and the pressure completely released once I took it off the heat.
The pork was done and very tender. I didn't have the same amount of liquid as in the photo. I started out with a small amount of liquid and some of it was absorbed by the hominy. I think if you added one cup of broth, it would make the recipe much better.
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I love Pozole, this looks amazing I will saving this recipe for later. My mouth is already watering I just need to get shredded cabbage & limes, warm corn tortillas on the side, YUM! Thanks for the post…
You’re welcome, Lisa. Can’t wait to hear how it turns out for you.