This easy, one-pot Red Chicken Pozole recipe is my go-to for cooler nights. A mix of chicken breasts and thighs slow simmer in a flavorful red chile broth with hominy until perfectly tender. Serve chicken pozole loaded with fresh toppings like onion, cilantro, cabbage, radish, and limes.
“I have made pozole before but never a healthy version because I didn’t want to lose out on all those flavors…. BUT this was amazing! All the flavors really come through, I’m definitely making this my new go to pozole!” – Myrranda, So Much Food reader
Table of Contents
The One-Pot Soup of My Childhood
There are two common types of pozole: rojo (red) and verde (green). This is a red pozole recipe that’s made with chicken in a bold red chile broth. Dried red chiles give the broth their red color and signature smoky flavor.
Red chicken pozole is one of my absolute favorite comfort food meals. I grew up eating it in the fall and winter months because it was my Dad’s favorite. We always served it with warm tortillas for dipping in the broth, lots of finely shredded cabbage, onions, cilantro, avocado, radishes, and lots of fresh lime.
Pozole is a dish that always reminds me of him and makes me feel closer to him when I make it. My version is a bit healthier, utilizing chicken breast instead of fatty pork, but it’s no less flavorful and tasty. The broth is really the key here so using homemade chicken broth is essential!
If you love this Mexican chicken hominy soup, try my pork pozole rojo next! It’s made the traditional way with braised pork and is another all-time favorite of mine.
What Is Pozole, Anyway?
Pozole is a meat and hominy stew that’s traditional to Mexican cooking. It’s often made with pork and served with shredded cabbage or lettuce, onions, chile peppers, cilantro, radishes, avocado, and/or lime.
While this recipe has roots in Hispanic and Mexican cooking, I don’t claim for it to be totally authentic. This is my version with some tweaks to make it a bit lighter and quicker — perfect for busy weeknights!
Helpful Cooking Tools
The Key Recipe Ingredients
You can find the full list of ingredients, quantities, and method in the recipe card at the end of the page.
- Chicken. I love this with a mix of chicken breast and thighs, but you can do all of one or the other. You can also make this with leftover shredded rotisserie chicken.
- Chicken broth. Using homemade broth is essential for making pozole — it adds so much extra flavor! If you don’t have the time to make your own broth, buy a good quality jar from the grocery store.
- Aromatics. Garlic, onion, carrot, and jalapeño make the broth super flavorful. It’ll taste like it’s been simmering for hours!
- Dried chilies. We’re using a mix of guajillo, ancho, and chile de arbol for some spice and flavor. You can find dried Mexican chilies at just about any grocery store and Mexican market.
- Hominy. Hominy is produced from dried maize kernels that have been treated with an alkali, in a process called nixtamalization. You can find them canned in most well-stocked grocery stores, or at your local Hispanic grocery store.
- Pinto beans. This is very untraditional, but I love the extra protein and texture that pinto beans add to the soup. Feel free to leave them out, if desired.
How to Make Red Chicken Pozole (Step-by-Step Photos)
- Sauté the aromatics. In a soup pot, start by sautéing your veggies (onion, garlic, carrots, and jalapeño) until slightly softened.
- Simmer for 30 minutes. Add your dried chilies, chicken, and broth to cover and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the chicken is cooked all the way through.
- Shred your chicken. Once your chicken is cooked through, remove it from the pot. You don’t want it overcooking and turning rubbery! After it cools a bit, you should be able to shred it effortlessly using just two forks.
- Blend the broth. Continue to simmer the broth until all the veggies are soft. Then, transfer the solid ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth (a slotted spoon makes easy work of this, FYI).
- Simmer for 10 more minutes to finish. Return the pureed veggies to the pot along with the shredded chicken, hominy, and pinto beans. Simmer for just 10 more minutes to bring all of the flavors together.
- Pile on the toppings. Pozole is a very hearty chicken and hominy soup, and the fresh, crunchy toppings are key to balancing out all of the rich flavors we’ve got going on! I always top my portion with finely shredded cabbage, diced white onion, minced cilantro, sliced radishes, and limes. Oh, and don’t forget the warm tortillas!
Can This Be Made in a Slow Cooker? Yes!
Seeing as how this one-pot red pozole only takes an hour from start to finish as is, I rarely feel the need to bust out my slow cooker to make it. But sometimes it’s nice to have an alternate cooking option!
Making this chicken pozole in a slow cooker is as easy as adding everything to the slow cooker, cooking on low for 5 to 6 hours, then blending the veggies and shredding the chicken as instructed.
I’ve given detailed instructions on how to adapt this recipe for the slow cooker in the recipe card below. Let me know if you go this route!
If you do give this recipe a try, I love hearing about it! Leave a comment with a star rating below. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter and never miss a new recipe! You can also snap a photo & tag @JENNYGOYCOCHEA on Instagram.
Other Mexican Soup Recipes to Try
- Green Chicken Enchilada Soup
- Pork Pozole Verde
- Pork Pozole Rojo
- Sopa de Fideo (Mexican Noodle Soup)
- Spicy Black Bean Soup
- Albondigas Soup
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Red Chicken Pozole Recipe
Ingredients
Chicken Pozole
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 4 boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 8 cups chicken stock or broth (preferably homemade)
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 carrots, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, whole
- 4 dried New Mexico or Guajillo chilies, seeds and stem removed
- 2 dried ancho chile, seeds and stem removed
- 2-3 dried chile de Arbol, seeds and stem removed (optional)
- 1 jalapeno, sliced and stem removed (optional)
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
- 30 oz canned white hominy, drained
- 15 oz canned pinto beans, rinsed (optional)
- salt and pepper, to taste
Toppings
- 1/2 cup finely minced white onion
- 4 tablespoons finely minced cilantro
- 1 cup finely shredded green or red cabbage
- Thinly sliced radishes
- Diced avocado
- flour tortillas, warmed
- Lime wedges
Instructions
- Sauté the aromatics. In a 4-5qt stock pot or dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the chopped onion, carrot, jalapeno and garlic and cook for 3-4 minutes until the onion starts to become translucent. Add the cumin, oregano and dried chilies and cook for 1 minute more, until fragrant.
- Simmer. Add the chicken broth, chicken breasts, and chicken thighs to the pot and season with a bit of salt and pepper. Cover and gently simmer on low for 30 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and the carrots are tender.
- Shred the chicken. Remove the chicken breasts and thighs from the pot and transfer them to a plate. Once they have cooled slightly, use your hands or a fork to shred them into large chunks. Set aside.
- Blend the pozole base. Using a slotted spoon, remove all the solids from the broth (carrots, onions, jalapeno, garlic, dried chilies) and transfer them to the carafe of a blender. Cover with just enough broth to make them easy to blend and then blend until very smooth.
- Simmer for 10 more minutes to finish. Return the contents of the blender to the pot. Add the shredded chicken, hominy, and pinto beans (if using) to the pot as well and bring to a simmer for another 10-15 minutes and season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Top and serve. Ladle soup into bowls and top as desired with cabbage, onion, cilantro, avocado, radish, tortillas, and freshly squeezed lime juice.
Rate & Review This Recipe
Loved the recipe, this is going to be on repeat this winter!
I have made pozole before but never a healthy version because I didn’t want to lose out on all those flavors…. BUT this was amazing! All the flavors really come through, I’m definitly making This my new go too pozole! Can’t wait to make the Tom Kha!
Yay! That makes me so happy to hear! Thank you for making it <3
We did this work leftover turkey from Thanksgiving, and it was amazing! We will be doing this over and over!
This is very delicious!! I’ve never made pozole before but this was easy to follow and tasted absolutely wonderful!! I didn’t have a dried ancho chili so I looked up how much of ancho chili powder you can use as a substitute and it said 1 TBSP ancho chili powder. I think it worked out great!! Thank you for putting this recipe out there!!
Loved this! I no longer eat red meat and was in search of a chicken pozole recipe. I’m glad I came across this recipe because it comforted me as much as the traditional beef pozole and was probably even better! I did not have dried chilies so I used canned red chili sauce and I did use hominy and pinto beans. Very yummy and will be cooking this often! Thank you for sharing this with us!
I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear that! Thank you so much for sharing and making the recipe!
This was SO good! I love that it has Chicken, I am not a fan of pork. I had been craving Pozole for a while, and this really satisfied the craving. I will be making this again, for sure! One thing I will do different is leave some of the seeds with the dried chilies. We like lots of spice, if you like a lower level of spice, follow the recipe exactly.
Made it for Christmas morning. I didn’t use the carrot but it’s just as good ?
Wonderful!! The soup is so hearty and comforting. It’s packed with deep flavor, which surprised me as it all comes together pretty quickly. This one is going to be on constant repeat in our house. Thanks for such a wonderful recipe!!
SO delicious! Second time having Jenny’s recipe on one of our favorite soups. Hearty & just the right level of spiciness!
This is my first time attempting this dish… I am super sensitive to heat spices so I only added a single dried chili, I added carrots onions and red bell peppers and omg so delicious… I also added diced potatoes because we have several hundred pounds of them … So more pozole-ish… But mmmmm thank you for sharing.
This was really easy and has great flavor! It was really mild spicewise, but a couple shakes of Valentina made it perfect for my palate. I used 3/4 of a leftover smoked chicken but added the bones to the 30-minute cooking portion and added the chicken with the hominy amd beans. I think it’s going to even better tomorrow!
This was easy and delicious! I let mine cook much longer than an hour because the chicken was more tender. So delicious with the 3 kinds of chilis.
I have always loved Mexican pozole, and I wanted my husband to love it too, so I made this recipe. He loved it! It made so much that we are having some friends over tomorrow! I didn’t have Guajillo so I used 4 extra Ancho instead. I served with lettuce, crema, lots of lime, cilantro, red cabbage, and radishes. I will be making this again!