Posole Rojo: a traditional recipe, and a shortcut

Posole has been a favorite of mine since I first discovered it. We typically think of soups as a winter thing, but I love it in the summer too. With the addition of the cool, fresh toppings, it makes a great summer meal!

If you are not familiar with posole (or pozole), it's a traditional Mexican soup or stew, with hominy and meat (usually pork) in a spiced broth. You dish out the fairly basic soup, and then you top your bowl with lots of fresh garnishes. There are both red and green versions, both are equally good, depending on whether you prefer the deep richness of dark red peppers, or the brighter tanginess of green peppers and tomatillos. 

Traditional posole is, obviously, made completely from scratch. The real recipes have you soaking and pureeing dried chilis to flavor your broth. It gives amazing flavor. It's not particularly difficult to make, but it is time consuming and so usually reserved for special occasions and holidays. It's not generally something that could be an easy weeknight meal unless you've made it ahead. 

With a busy family, I'm all about easy weeknight meals. I love taking a classic recipe and looking and the pieces of it to figure out how I can make it quicker and easier and taste just (or almost) as good. I have a great traditional from scratch recipe that I've made many times which is great to make on a weekend. I've included that one down at the end below - I don't know what the original source of this recipe was, I've had it scratched on a piece of paper for years. I highly recommend you make the scratch version at least once. But I also have developed my own cheater version.

If you start with good flavorful ingredients, I really think this version is just as good, and it is so much quicker and easier to make. 

Lisa's Cheater Posole Rojo:

Indredients:

• 1 can/package of enchilada sauce – mild or spicy, however you like it.

• 1 quart of chicken broth

• A large can of hominy, or a couple small cans

• An onion or two

• Cooked pork – I use pre-cooked pork carnitas from Trader Joes, Costco has some too. Chicken works great too - Costco and Trader Joe's both have packages of grilled chicken, or get a rotisserie chicken and pick the meat off. Or just use whatever cooked meat you might have leftover.

Garnishes: (choose any, all, or none - whatever you like!)

• grated cheese

• crushed tortilla chips

• sour cream

• diced tomatoes

• diced avocado

• chopped cilantro

• diced or chopped yellow, white, or green onions

• sliced radishes

• shredded lettuce or cabbage

• quartered limes

Directions: 

Easy! Just combine everything in the ingredients list in a pot and let simmer for 15-20 minutes. Basically by the time you've got your table set and your garnishes ready, you'll be ready to eat. It will taste even better if you let it simmer longer, but it's great even if you don't have a lot of time.  You could saute the onions first in some oil, but you don't have to.  It’s even better if you make it a day ahead and let it sit overnight. 

Serve in nice big bowls with your choice of toppings. Really you can put anything you want on this.  Keep it simple with just a little lime and cilantro, or load it up.  It's yummy either way.  Either version of this is great for a party - lay out a beautiful spread of the garnishes and people are very impressed. 

Try a few different enchilada sauces and find one you like. I find it's best with a nice dark rich sauce. I've recently used the Frontera brand and I think it was the best yet - very deep rich flavor without being spicy. 

This version is such a great weeknight meal for a cold and rainy day. And here's a tip for you - make a big pot of this for a dinner party or other gathering and people will be blown away! They will think you've made something really amazing, when really all you did was throw a bunch of stuff in a pot.

Original Pozole Rojo

serves 8-10

Ingredients:

• 1 bone-in picnic roast (pork shoulder, also called pork butt), about 5 pounds

• Salt and pepper

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 2 medium-large onions, chopped coarse

• 5 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed

• 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano leaves or 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano

• 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth

• 1.5 cups of water

• 2 ounces dried ancho chiles (about 3 large)

• 3 (15 ounce) cans white or yellow hominy, drained and rinsed

Garnishes

• 2 limes, quartered

• 1/2 head lettuce, sliced crosswise into thin strips

• 6 medium radishes, sliced thin

• 1 small onion, minced

• roughly chopped cilantro leaves

• chopped fresh oregano or dried mexican oregano

• 1/4 cup pureed ancho chiles

• flour or corn tortillas (or I like tortilla chips)

Directions:

1. trim skin and excess fat from meat and cut into large pieces of various sizes. dry thoroughly and season generously with salt and pepper

2. heat oil over medium heat and cook onions and 1/4 tsp salt until onions are softened. stir in garlic

3. add the meat and stir often until no longer pink on the outside. add tomatoes, oregano, broth, and 1/2 tsp salt. increase heat and bring to a simmer. cover, place in oven and cook until meat is tender, about 2 hours.

4. meanwhile, bring water to boil. remove stems and seeds from chiles and soak with hot water until soft, about 20 mins. puree chiles and liquid until smooth. pour through a strainer and reserve 1/4 cup for garnish

5. remove meat and bones from pot. stir in hominy and pureed anchos. cover and return to oven and cook until hominy is hot, about 45 mins.

6. meanwhile, when meat is cool, shred it. stir shredded meat into the stew. taste to adjust seasonings. ladle into bowls and serve with garnishes.

You can also sort of combine the two versions. I've done it before where I started with a raw piece of pork and sautéed that with the onions as in the first recipe, but then added the broth and enchilada sauce to finish it off. I've also done both versions in the slow cooker. I have a great slow cooker with a metal insert, so you can brown your meat and onions on the stove first, and then put everything else in to slow cook.  

You can even make a meatless version! Here are two versions I made once - the one on the left has pork and chicken broth, the one on the right was made for some vegetarian friends, with vegetable broth and a variety of beans. It tasted great too!

Enjoy! 

~ Lisa

Simple Poached Chicken + Garlic Broth

Poached chicken often gets a bad rap. A lot of people think it's bland and flavorless. But it doesn't have to be that way. I think poached chicken can be a kitchen lifesaver. You may have heard me say before that I always have cooked chicken in my fridge.  There are so many quick and delicious meals you can make in just a few minutes if you already have cooked chicken.  I often will roast chickens and pick the meat off, but if I haven't gotten around to doing that and I want some cooked chicken to use for a recipe (or just to eat!), then poaching is my next best go-to.

Poached chicken doesn't have to be bland or dry. I think the mistake most people make when poaching chicken, or when cooking chicken in just about any other method as well, is not enough salt.  I was looking around the web at a few poached chicken recipes just to see how other people do it, and I was shocked at how little (or no!) salt most people use.  Yuck. Of course you're going to end up with chicken that tastes like nothing.  Chicken needs salt. It just does. 

I needed some chicken today for the enchiladas I am planning to make for dinner tonight.  So I poached some and thought while I was at it I would share with you how I do it. By adding some extra ingredients to the pot, not only do you get a more flavorful piece of chicken, but you also get a really delicious light broth.

My ingredients are just a guideline - you can put in whatever you like for flavoring, but this is just what I had handy today. Other veggies would be great, or parsley, or other herbs. I used green onions because I had them and I like the flavor, but a quarter of a yellow or white onion will work fine too. Add whatever flavors you like. Just don't skimp on the salt. 

Here are the basic ingredients I used today: 

• 1 carrot, broken in a couple pieces

• 1 stalk celery, cut in half

• 2 green onions, trimmed

• 1 1/2 T salt

• 1 T (about 3 cloves) crushed garlic, or more

• a splash of white wine

• 2 chicken breasts

• 3 -4 cups of water - enough to fully cover the chicken in the pot

Put everything but the chicken in a medium stock pot and bring to a slight boil.  Taste it.  Your poaching liquid should taste salty.  Not like drinking a mouthful of ocean water salty, but maybe slightly saltier than you would want a good broth to be - the chicken is going to absorb a lot of the salt and will leave your broth tasting just right. If the liquid doesn't taste salty, then add a little more salt. 

Gently place your chicken breasts in the broth, making sure they are fully covered.  If they aren't fully covered, add a little more hot water, or more wine. Now simmer for 10-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chicken. The pieces I got today were from some kind of mutant monster chicken - they were super thick, so I cooked them for 15 minutes. But small breasts might only need 10 minutes.  

When you think they are done, take them out of the pot to rest.  The way I tell if chicken is done is by pressing on it.  If it really gives and feels very soft still, then it's not cooked, so put it back for a few more minutes.  But if you press in the middle and it feels fairly firm, then it's done. This method requires a bit of practice and trial and error, but after you do it a few times you will get a sense for what a cooked piece of meat should feel like. I really try to avoid cutting into meat to check for doneness - that lets all the juices out and you end up with a very dry piece of meat. If you think it's cooked enough, then let it rest for about 10 minutes on a plate.  It will finish cooking a little, and stay much more juicy. 

Now you can slice or dice the chicken to use in salads or on sandwiches. Or you can pull it apart into shreds for a soup or a casserole.  The lightly flavored broth makes the basis for a delicious mild soup, or it's wonderful to just drink a cup on a rainy afternoon. You can also use it again - I actually added two more chicken breasts to my pot and cooked them in the same liquid, so now my broth has more chicken flavor.  I will be using some of it as a base for a spiced tomato gravy that I use in my enchiladas, and the rest I will probably just drink. 

How to Make Homemade Chicken Broth

Once you've had good homemade stock you'll really never want to go back.  The store bought stuff tastes so bland, or sometimes tastes like nothing but salt.  I love good chicken broth.  I love it so much that sometimes it doesn't survive long enough to make it into soup.  When someone in the house is sick, I make up a big pot of it and drink as much as I can.  I think it's the definition of classic comfort food, and it's so good for you.  Just do a quick google on the benefits of bone broth and you'll find pages and pages of info.

The other great thing about making it yourself is that it's basically free.  Free!  Something so delicious, and so good for you - that costs you nothing.  That's because you're making it out of stuff that you would otherwise be throwing away.  I cringe at the thought of anyone throwing out the leftover carcass from their roast chicken or turkey - such a waste when you can turn it into such good broth.

People have asked for my recipe for making my chicken broth.  It's not so much of a recipe as it is just a simple method with some guidelines for basic ingredients.  You need chicken bones of course, and water, but the other flavorings are totally optional.

Here's what I like to use:

• a couple pounds of leftover chicken or turkey bones
• a few pieces of aromatic vegetables (traditionally onion, carrot, celery, but you can use others too)
• salt
• a couple quarts of water
• pepper and other seasonings as desired
• A quarter cup of some kind of acid - either a couple of sliced lemons, or some vinegar
• a good slow cooker or big stock pot

A few additional notes:

• You can use any kind of bones for this, it doesn't have to be whole roast chickens.  If you've cooked up a bunch of thighs, or wings, definitely use the bones for those.  Or if you really just need broth and you don't want to have a chicken dinner, then ask your butcher for scraps - wings, necks, whatever.  I've heard that chicken feet make amazing stock.  
• I keep a ziploc bag in my freezer, and when I trim veggies for cooking I add the clean trimmings to the bag - carrot tops, ends of onions, ends of celery, kale ribs. You can use just about anything, just remember that they are adding flavor so don't use anything that you don't want to taste too much. I wouldn't recommend things like broccoli or cauliflower, I think the flavor would be too strong.  
• For seasoning I usually just do salt and pepper, but you could certainly throw in a bay leaf, a few sprigs of rosemary or thyme or sage, really anything you like the flavor of.
• A little acid of some kind somehow helps get all the flavor out of the bones.  I usually cut a couple lemons in half and throw them in, they give a great flavor.  If I don't have lemons then I do apple cider vinegar.
• Don't be shy with the salt.
• I make mine in a slow cooker so that I can leave it overnight or while I'm out of the house for the day, but you can do this in a pot.  You'll just need to keep it on a low simmer and keep an eye on it. 
• I generally figure on about a quart of broth per whole chicken.  I usually do 2 chickens, so I put in a little more than 2 quarts of water and get about 2 quarts of broth.

After all that being said - I've made wonderful chicken broth with just chicken bones, water and salt.  If you don't add other flavoring, then it's called stock.  With seasoning and flavoring it's called broth.  Technicalities.  It's all good.

How to make your broth:

After you've had your lovely roast chicken dinner, take all the remaining meat off the bones and put it away to use later in your soup. Put all the scraps and bones and any leftover drippings in your slow cooker - don't forget the skin, it adds great flavor too.  Add in your vegetables, seasoning, acid.  Add enough water to completely cover it all (in a big slow cooker with bones from 2 chickens you should be looking at about 8-9 cups of water).  Turn your slow cooker on low for as long as it will go (mine has a timer that will go for 10 hours). Go to bed.  The next morning you will have a lovely stock.  You can call it  good at this point, or you can just let it keep going.  The longer you let it cook, the better it will taste.  You might need to add a bit more water. So give it a stir, and taste it.  If you were a little shy with the salt at first then you might want to add some now.  

When you are satisfied that it's ready, strain out all the stuff.  I put a strainer over a big glass bowl and ladle everything into that, catching the chunks in the strainer.  Some people will then strain through cheesecloth or something fine, to get all the little bits of stuff out.  I usually don't do this because I don't mind the stuff, I'm making soup anyway so it will be fine.  But if you want a really clear broth then a separate straining might be good. 

You don't have to cook it for 24 hours.  You can make a really good broth just simmering on the stove for a couple hours.  The slow cooker is just an easy way to bring out even more flavor. 

If you want to be even more frugal - you can actually make two whole batches of broth from one set of bones!  Just strain out your first batch of broth after simmering overnight or all day, and fill it up with water again, add a little more salt, and let it got another 8-10 hours.  The second batch might not have quite as much flavor as the first, but it will still make an amazing soup. 

If your chicken was really fatty, you might want to separate the fat.  In the one pictured I didn't bother, and you can see there's just a tiny bit of fat on the top.  I'm ok with that.  But if that is going to bother you, then you must have one of these handy fat separators.  They work great. 

And that's it!  Now go make your favorite soup recipe.  Or just pour some in a mug and drink it.  A lot of people freeze theirs, but ours never lasts long enough to bother with that. 

Easy weeknight meatball soup

This is a super quick and easy one that I made for dinner last week. It turned out so yummy that I figured I'd better share the recipe. This is the kind of soup I love to make, it's fast, it's healthy, and it's a big crowd pleaser. 

I made a big pot. Because, soup. Why wouldn't you want a big pot? Leftover soup is even better than fresh soup, and it's a really easy and cost effective way to feed a crowd. But of course you could cut this  recipe and make less.

As with all of my recipes - this is really flexible! My quantities are just a guideline for you to start with, but I very much encourage you to customize this with whatever you've got on hand, or whatever sounds good.  Add more veggies, less veggies, leave out the tomatoes, swap the beef broth for chicken or turkey broth and use turkey meatballs - this is just a good basic technique that you can apply to any kind of soup. 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 onion
• 2 stalks of celery
• 1 parsnip
• 1 bunch of kale
• a couple cloves of garlic  
• oil for sautéing  
• 2 quarts beef broth
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 2 small bags frozen mini meatballs (mine were from Trader Joes) 
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 2 cups cooked rice or pasta (optional)
• salt to taste

Directions:

Chop or dice all of your veggies. Size doesn't really matter, it's just personal preference. If you like chunky soups, then cut them in bigger chunks. If you think your littles (like mine) are more likely to eat it with small bites of veggies, then cut them as small as you can.

Heat a good size soup pot, and then pour in just enough oil to cover the bottom. Saute all the veggies in the oil until beginning to soften. You can season with a pinch or two of salt to help them along. Once your veggies are cooked a little, add everything else except the salt. I hold off on the salt for a while because the saltiness of broths and meatballs can really very, so you want to let your soup simmer for a while and let all the flavors start to combine before you add more salt. 

The rice or pasta is optional. I love this kind of soup with rice, I just think it makes it even more comforting. But it's really delicious without, so if you're trying to cut carbs go ahead and leave it out. Or sometimes when I make something like this I will serve it with a bowl of cooked rice or pasta on the side, so that I can have mine without the extra carbs and my kids can add carbs to theirs. You can also start with uncooked rice, but you'll want to add an extra 2 cups of broth for each 1 cup of dry rice. 

This is so easy to make that it's a great one to have the kids help with. I chopped and sautéed the veggies, and one of my five-year-old girls did everything else. 

Once everything is combine in the pot, then just let it simmer.  You'll want to simmer it for at least long enough to get your meatballs all heated and cooked through, probably 20 minutes. But really the longer the better.  This is totally the kind of things that you could put in your slow cooker and let it just simmer on low for several hours, or put it on a back burner of your stove. I like to let this kind of soup simmer for at least an hour if I have time, it all just tastes better that way, but even after 20 minutes it will be delicious. That's what makes this the perfect weeknight meal. After it has simmered for a while, and your meatballs have cooked and released some of their flavor in to the broth, give it a taste. It's at this point that you can add more salt or other seasoning if you think it needs it. 

enjoy!

Slow Cooker Lentil & Sausage Soup Recipe

This lentil soup is hearty and comforting and great for those nights when you need something to warm your tummy. It's super easy to make and it has a great balance of veggies and the delicious taste you can only get from sausage. My kids, like most, are not big veggie eaters.  But they eat this soup! They are suckers for anything with sausage in it.  When I serve it to the kids I put a big dollop of sour cream on top - they seem to like it better with the creaminess, and it's a great way to cool it off quickly. One of my kids actually loves this so much that she requested the leftovers for breakfast the next day, and for snack when she got home from school.

The beauty of this type of recipe is in its flexibility.  You can make this however you want, so please use this recipe as a guideline, not as a strict rule.  If you like more or less or something, go for it. Change the type of sausage (or use meatballs or chicken), try different veggies, and different spices. That's the great thing about soup - you can personalize it and never make it the same twice!

Ingredients:

• 1 package of sausage - usually a little over a pound. 
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 stalk of celery
• 2 cloves of garlic (or 2 teaspoons crushed)
• 3 quarts chicken broth
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups dry lentils 
• 1 head of cauliflower
• 1 bunch of kale, or other greens.
• salt & pepper to taste
• Other herbs or seasoning to taste. 

This works with basically any kind of sausage you like.  I usually use brats or Italian sausage because I like the flavor.  But if you want a little spice you could use a spicy sausage.  Or if you want to keep it a little lighter you could use a chicken sausage.  

You can also use any kind of lentils.  Different kinds will have different textures when cooked, and take different cooking times, so just experiment and use ones you like.  Red and orange lentils cook faster and have a softer texture when cooked.  Green and black ones tend to hold their shape better. The one pictured was a very generic package of green lentils, I often have those on hand because they are usually the cheapest. 

If you have homemade broth (here's how I make it), then that will kick this up into the ultra amazing category - it just adds so much flavor.  But this is still great with store bought broth, and obviously that makes it very easy. 

You could totally leave out the tomatoes if you're not a tomato person.  I like to add them because I think the slight acidity goes well with the lentils and sausage. It's not enough that it seems like a very tomato-ey soup, but it's just enough to add a depth of flavor. 

I like to hold off on the salt until I've got it all put together and simmering, because depending on the type of sausage and broth you use, it salt level is really going to vary.  Some are very salty, some are not.  Get it all assembled and then give the broth a taste, and then season as you think it needs.  And here's where you can get creative: add other spices to give it a totally different flavor.  If you want an Indian type flavor, add some curry powder.  Or add cumin and extra garlic.  Or for a more Italian flavor add some basil and oregano, or just an Italian seasoning blend.  Or add a little cumin and chili powder for more of a southwest flavor.  The possibilities are endless. Or keep it simple with just salt and pepper and you will still love it!

Directions:

• If you are starting with uncooked sausage, squeeze them out of the casings into little lumps, the size of small meatballs. Heat a heavy bottom pot (or the insert for your stove-top slow cooker), and add sausage balls.  You don't need oil because the sausage is going to release plenty of fat. Brown all over.
• Chop onion, carrot, celery, and garlic, and add to the pot with the browned sausage.  Saute until onions are getting soft. 
• Add chicken broth and can of tomatoes (with juice!). Bring to a simmer, and then add dry lentils. 
• Chop cauliflower and greens and add to the pot. 
• Cover and simmer for at least an hour. 

I like to make this in my slow cooker.  I have a slow cooker with a metal insert, so I can do all the browning and sauteing on the stove right in the slow cooker pot, and then move it to the cooker to simmer. (This is the slow cooker I have, and I love it!) I will throw this together in the afternoon, and then let it simmer on low for 3 hours or so while I go to the after school run around, and we come home to dinner ready to eat.  But you can just as easily do this all on the stove. 

Shortcut:

If you want to make this really fast, use pre-cooked lentils and cooked sausage. You can get a package of pre-cooked lentils at Trader Joes or most grocery stores.  Use the whole package.  Saute all your veggies, cut your sausage into chunks, and then add all the other ingredients. Cut the broth to just 1 1/2 or 2 quarts, depending on how brothy you like it. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, just until the veggies are cooked to your liking.  It's an easy way to make a super quick weeknight meal. 

Easy Weeknight Lentil & Meatball Soup

One of the things that I hope people can learn from me is how a little bit of planning ahead can make your life so much easier!  A huge benefit of creating a weekly meal plan is that you have taken the time to think through how you can use leftovers from one meal as the basis for another meal later in the week.  You can plan ahead for how you can cook once for multiple meals.

So what I'm sharing with you in this post isn't so much of a recipe, but it's an example of how I've used my plan and cooked ahead to make a super easy weeknight meal that tastes like it cooked for hours.  

This is a lentil soup with homemade chicken stock, roasted vegetables, and homemade turkey meatballs.  Sounds like it would take hours to make, doesn't it?  No, it was a less than an hour (like 45 minutes really), from start to finish (and only that long because I started with dry lentils).

Ingredients:

• 2 quarts of homemade chicken broth
• Several cups of roasted vegetables - this one had cauliflower, onions, mushrooms, and celery, that had been roasted with Za'atar (a middle eastern spice blend), olive oil, garlic and salt
• 2 cups of dry lentils
• 12 - 18 frozen homemade meatballs
• 1 bunch of fresh spinach, roughly chopped.

How I did it:

Because I had the stock already made, the veggies already roasted and the meatballs already in my freezer, this came together in just a few minutes.  Put the broth, lentils and veggies in the pot and let them simmer for a half hour or so until the lentils are mostly cooked.  Then add the frozen meatballs and spinach and simmer long enough for the meatballs to be fully heated through.  That's it.  Serve. 

If you want this to be even faster you could buy a package of precooked lentils  Trader Joe's has them and some grocery stores do now too.  If you use precooked lentils then I would just hold back on a cup or two of the broth.  Or you can just use a kind of dry lentil that cooks fast - I used these red lentils, and they cook in about 30 minutes. 

A little more background on how this came together - so you can get the point of planning ahead that I'm talking about:

1. Last Saturday we had turkey burgers for dinner.  At the same time as I was making the burgers, I mixed up extra meat and made some meatballs as well.  The recipe was just 1 tablespoon of Za'atar, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 egg for every pound of ground turkey. Easy.  I tripled that so we had plenty of burgers and a couple dozen meatballs. I put the meatballs in the oven at 400 for 20 minutes while we ate dinner, let them cool, and put in the freezer after dinner. 
2. On Sunday we had roast chicken and veggies for dinner.  I always cook 2 chickens and I roast them on top of a whole bunch of veggies so that we will have lots left over.  The veggies for that dinner were the cauliflower, onion, mushroom and celery. 
3. After that dinner I put the chicken carcasses in my slow cooker with a few ends of veggies (celery, carrot, onion), some salt, and cover with water, and I set that to cook on low for 10 hours (overnight), and then again all the rest of the next day and the next night (yes, I cook my stock for at least a day and a half).
4. On Tuesday morning I strain the stock and put it in the fridge. 
5. At about 5:15 I got everything out, poured the stock in the pot and added my lentils and veggies.  Then the meatballs and spinach a half an hour later.  And we were eating dinner by 6:00. 

It really doesn't get much easier than that.  Everything homemade and from scratch, made ahead by just taking a little extra time after cooking a couple of other meals.  You can totally do this.