Mexican night is as easy as this Shredded Pork Chile Verde recipe. With robust flavors of roasted green chiles and tomatillos, this pork chile verde is the ultimate comfort food. Use pork Verde for shredded pork tacos, chilaquiles and much more!
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When I worked as a professional chef, a few years ago, I mostly relied on freezer-type meals to get my husband and me through the week! This came in handy when I worked the night shift or 60 hour weeks. I came across this shredded pork chile verde recipe at the last restaurant I worked. I loved how versatile this succulent meat was! And how easy it was to prepare and freeze to be cooked later.
This recipe has a few different ways that you can cook it but each lends to the same delicious end result. With pork shoulder (butt) being the cut of meat used in this recipe, no matter which method you use, the most important thing to remember is low and slow! Here are three ways you can cook pork shoulder (butt) and make this pork chile verde:
- Oven Braised
- Slower Cooker (my personal favorite)
- Instant Pot
Each method has its merits and a lot of the steps are the same, to a point. Let me teach you each method and you can decide for yourself.
Cooking Shredded Pork Chile Verde
Creating the Green Chile Sauce
Set your chile Verde sauce ingredients out on a sheet pan and season with salt and pepper, tossed in a little olive oil. I line my sheet pan with aluminum foil instead of silicone mats or parchment paper different reasons.
Silicone mats can only withstand temperatures in an oven up to 475 degrees. Higher temperatures lead to the mat to start melting and losing its non-stick coating. Since these ingredients are being broiled, the distance between the heating element and the silicone mat would exceed its max temperature threshold.
Parchment paper often burns under the broiling elements in an oven which leads to a big mess in the oven, not to mention the fire danger when the paper ignites.
Charring the veggies and chiles really helps get rid of the unwanted thick skins of the chiles and gives a great char to everything which helps give a good, earthy and smoky flavor to the pork. This pairs really well if you use an outdoor grill to sear the meat. Once everything is charred, remember to let it all steam together in a bowl with a lid or some plastic wrap to keep all of that hot air inside. This helps to loosen the tough outer skins of the chiles even more which makes your job easier when you have to peel.
After the chiles are peeled, throw everything (juice and all), plus a full bunch of cilantro into a blender and blend until all big chunks are smoothed out. Bam! Green chile sauce.
Prepping the Pork Butt
Start out by setting your pork out to warm up about an hour before starting the cooking. This allows the meat to relax from being chilled and leads to a more tender end result.
Before cooking anything, I season the pork liberally with salt and pepper because it’s the only time you’ll be able to get a good amount of seasoning done before everything melds together. Don’t be shy, I mean… I guess you can definitely over salt it. If you are a little worried, you can always season afterward.
One thing that I always like to do with meats that I’ll be slow cooking is to sear it. Searing meat before braising or cooking it in a crockpot helps to lock in all the juices and it gives it a great depth of flavor. In this recipe, I like using my cast iron skillet! If you happen to have a grill, that is a great alternative! As long as the cast iron skillet or grill are piping hot, you’ll develop a nice crust on the outside which is what you want.
How To Oven Braise a Pork Roast
This method is very easy to do but do require a few more tools than a slow cooker or instant pot. When I was shown a variation of this recipe, we make chile verde pork in the oven, braised in low heat overnight, The result was amazing!
We would place our seared pork butts in a deep braising dish (at home, you could definitely use a roasting pan like this one) and poured the green chile sauce on top. We then covered the whole pan with a layer of plastic wrap and then aluminum foil on top of that. The plastic wrap would melt to the outside edges of the pan, creating a vacuum seal which allowed the moisture to stay completely in the pan. Don’t worry, the plastic comes right off after the pan cools for a bit.
Cooking time and temperature for this recipe was at 275 degrees for about 8 hours. This method would be perfect for the winter and keep your house warm!
How To Cook a Pork Roast in a Slow Cooker
Now if you don’t like to run your oven overnight because of the heat but still want to wake up to that amazing smell of pork chile verde, I would definitely do it in the slow cooker!
You being the same way as the oven braising, except you put it all in the slow cooker. Put a lid on it and turn it on to the low setting and let it rock for 6-7 hours. I’m personally a huge fan of the slow cooker method because I love waking up to the smell of green chile in the morning. In fact, it wakes me up prematurely and I promptly make myself some breakfast tacos!
Shredded Pork Chile Verde in the Instant Pot
Instant Pots are all the rage now and what’s fantastic about them is that you get the same results as oven braising or slow cooking in a fraction of the time! It’s astounding!
Again, you start off with the same beginning as the two first methods, but this time you add pressure into the mix. Seal the Instant Pot, switch it to Meat/Stew, and set the timer for an hour and a half. (I used a gigantic shoulder for this, so if you use a smaller pork butt, decrease the time to an hour.) Once the chile pork Verde is done cooking, depressurize the Instant Pot and then shred!
Easy Peasy.
After cooking this, you might be wondering what are all the ways I can eat this? Here are some awesome ideas of what I used the green chile meat for:
Breakfast Burritos… yes yes yes!
Shredded Pork Tacos
Pork Chile Verde Burritos; with some cheese and all the fixins
Shredded Pork Chile Verde Taco Salad
Shredded Pork Chile Verde Rice and Bean Bowl
Chilaquiles
Enchiladas…
I’ll stop there for now.
As you can see, this is just the tip of the iceberg as to what you can do with this meat! It’s super versatile and you can really add it to anything you want! Feel free to thank me later once you make this! Also, if you liked this recipe, be sure to leave a 5-star rating.
Happy eating everyone!
Mexican night is as easy as this Shredded Pork Chile Verde recipe. With robust flavors of roasted green chiles and tomatillos, this pork chile verde is the ultimate comfort food. Use pork verde for shredded pork tacos, chilaquiles and much more!
- 1-2 pounds Anahiem chiles
- 2 each jalapenos
- 1 head garlic
- 1 each onion
- 1-2 pound tomatillos husked and washed
- 2-3 pound pork shoulder aka butt
- 1 bunch cilantro
- To taste lime juice
- To taste salt and pepper
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. Set your oven to broil. Line a sheet pan with alumnium foil and grease with cooking spray.
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Wash chiles, tomatillos (after removing husks) and place on the sheet pan. Cut the onion into rough pieces, peel garlic and add to the chiles and tomatillos. Broil until blistered, making sure to turn everything so that they brown evenly. Once the skins are blistered, let cool before peeling the chiles.
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Season pork butt liberally with salt and pepper. Preheat a grill or skillet until hot. Sear pork butt for about 5 minutes on both sides. Remove from heat and let juices redistribute.
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When chilies have cooled and been peeled of their skins, place them along with tomatillos, onions, garlic, and cilantro in a blender. Blend until everything has broken down (use the juices of the blistered veggies and chiles to help things get going.
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Place seared pork butt into a crock pot and pour green chile mix over the meat. Place the lid on top and turn crock pot on to low and let cook 6-8 hours.
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Shred and enjoy! Season with lime juice and salt.
If you got a pork butt with the shoulder bone still in, allow the meat to cook all the way before removing. It will save the meat and you an ulcer this way!
*To cook this in an Instant Pot, place seared pork butt and green chile sauce in Instant Pot. Secure lid and set to Meat/Stew. Set timer for 90 minutes. Depressurize once the timer is done and shred.
*To oven braise, place seared pork butt, and green chile sauce in a roasting pan and cover with a lid or plastic wrap and aluminium foil. Place in an oven set to 275 and braise for 8 hours. Shred when cooled after a few minutes.
I need to use my slow cooker more often Marlee! This looks delicious, and so perfect for spring!!
Thank you, Sarah! I love my slow cooker as well. Both a slow cooker and Instant Pot are perfect for summer cooking because you don’t have have to heat up the kitchen!
Oh my goodness, I’m drooling over all the delicious ways to use this pork! Really good to know, too, about the reasons not to use silicone mats or parchment at high temperatures – I do sometimes char parchment when making pizzas, so I can see it being a problem if you tried to roast like this! Aluminum foil it is!
Thank you so much for your kind words, Monica! Yeah, I totally stumbled upon using aluminum foil for broiling and I’m never going back!
Oh wow this looks so juicy and full of flavour! Neeeeed it. Do you ship to the UK? 😀
Hahaha I am sure we can make something work ;P