Pozole: A hearty stew made of beef, beans, and hominy.
Originally Posted: Oct. 6, 2021
Last Edited: Dec. 29, 2023
Total Time: 4 hours
Jump to RecipeIntro
From what I’ve heard from friends and family that are familiar with the dish, Pozole is usually a soup consisting of meat, hominy, and spices that are slow cooked together. It’s been compared to the classic Sunday dish Menudo, but without the tripe and the pigs’ feet, and perhaps less spicy in its basic form.
However, this is the Pozole recipe that I grew up with. A very thick stew of beef, beans, and hominy that condenses as it cools, making it even tastier and heartier as leftovers. The marrow from the beef short ribs is the key to heartiness and thickness in this recipe.
I cooked this recipe with my family one night so I could take pictures, time things out, and write down detailed notes. My mom knows the recipe like the back of her hand, and it’s been passed down through the generations from mother to daughter-in-law, but until now I don’t think it was ever really written down, it was mostly cooked from memory and experience. It’s the sort of recipe that’s very forgiving and lends itself to experimentation with different ingredients. It just takes a long time.
Brief History
Pozole is a Mexican dish named for the Nahuatl word for a specific variety of corn (the nixtamalized corn used to make hominy). Traditionally, pozole is more commonly cooked with pork or chicken, and can come in white/blanco, green/verde, or red/rojo varieties. The different color varieties come from adding a verde or rojo sauce to the mix for extra flavor.
My family’s recipe most closely resembles the white variety of pozole, though I’ve often thought of tweaking it to a verde with the addition of Hatch chili peppers or even roasted or smoked bell peppers or tomatillos—this was before I even learned that there were verde and rojo varieties. Through reading online, the thickness of my family’s pozole also resembles a traditional Spanish dish known as olla podrida/olla poderida (“rotten pot” or “powerful pot” respectively), which is a slow cooked stew of meat, chickpeas, and vegetables. It also sort of resembles Brazilian feijoada, which I first learned about watching Tasting History with Max Miller (here’s a link to his amazing YouTube channel).
A New Clue to This Recipe’s Origins
Edit (Dec. 29, 2023): So about two or three months ago, out of nowhere, my dad says “Oh yeah, my mom found that recipe on a wall at San Juan Capistrano mission”. This is after years of me not knowing the recipe’s origin. I always thought it had been in my family longer than that, but I guess the earliest we’ve known about it was probably the 1960’s.
At any rate, I guess this could be a new clue as to why this pozole recipe is so different than others that I’ve had (my girlfriend’s sister’s pozole is an amazing example of the more common version). We at least have a time and a location where it crops up again. I wonder how we could trace it back from there…
Learning more about food history, I’ve also thought about why beans in particular had been added, and the two potential reasons I’ve come up with while learning about other historical recipes are 1) as a replacement for meat in lean times or 2) as a meat replacement during Lent. Either way, it seems that someone decided to just keep the beans in there once they could get meat again.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. Pinto Beans (about 450 grams)
- 4ish Beef Short Ribs (about 2.25 lbs. in this instance, or about 1kg)
- One 25oz large can Hominy (about .70kg)
- ½ – 1 Yellow Onion
- 5ish cloves of garlic
- 1 – 3 Tbsp salt, depending on taste (about 17g – 51g)
- Fresh ground pepper to taste
- Hatch chilis, roasted/smoked peppers, jalapeños (optional, basically your choice of chili)
- Avocado and sour cream for garnish (optional)
Equipment
- Large stock pot or Dutch oven
- Can opener
- Knife for chopping vegetables
Written Instructions
Total Time: 4 hours
Part 1: The Beans and Meat
Start by soaking the pinto beans overnight. Alternatively, you can rinse and then parboil (partially cook) the beans to speed up the process. To do this, cover the beans by about 2in (5cm) of water, bring the pot to a boil for 1min, remove the pot from the heat, and let the beans soak for an hour. Whichever soak method you use, drain and rinse the beans afterwards. You’re now ready to start the recipe.
Once beans have been soaked, drained, and rinsed, put them in your stock pot (or Dutch oven) and fill with water until beans are covered by 1in – 1.5in (about 2.5cm – 3.8cm). Add your beef short ribs, bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Place a lid on the pot, cracked to allow steam out.
Note: For the sake of timing this recipe, consider the starting time to be when you add the meat to the beans and start the heat.
Part 2: The Vegetables
While the meat and beans are simmering, chop the onion and garlic. Sautée onion and garlic in a bit of oil until soft and translucent. Add them to the pot of meat and beans (in this instance, it happened at the 47-minute mark, but let’s round up to the 1-hour mark and call that good).
Note: If you choose to add the optional peppers, chop and add them along with the onion and garlic.
Part 3: Waiting and Finishing
Around the 2-hour mark, add 1 – 2 Tbsp (17g – 34g) of salt to taste. You can go up to 3 Tbsp (51g) of salt if you want. Continue simmering everything until the meat easily falls off the bone. On this particular night, this happened around the 3.5-hour mark. Remove the ribs from the pot and set them on a plate to cool. Once cool enough to comfortably touch, shred the rib meat either with your fingers or with two forks.
Note: Using fingers makes it a bit easier to remove excess fat from the meat. This is a good reason to allow the meat to cool until it’s comfortable to touch.
Around the 4-hour mark, turn off the heat and add the meat back into the pot. Add the can of hominy now, and fresh ground pepper to taste. Serves about 8 people, maybe a little more or less. Garnish with avocado slices and a dollop of sour cream if you wish.
Pozole
Equipment
- Stock Pot or Dutch Oven
Ingredients
- 2.25 lbs. Beef Short Ribs
- 1 lb. Pinto Beans
- 25 oz Canned Hominy
- 1 Yellow Onion
- 5 cloves Garlic
- 1-3 tbsp Salt
- Fresh ground pepper to taste
- (Optional) Chili peppers for a Pozole Verde
Instructions
- Soak 1-lb. of pinto beans overnight, or use the quick-soak method of parboiling for 1 minute and then soaking in the warm water for 1 hour. Afterwards, drain and rinse beans.
- Add beans back to stock pot or Dutch oven and add fresh water to cover beans by 1in – 1.5in (about 2.5cm – 3.8cm).
- Add 4-ish beef short ribs (about 2.25lbs. or 1kg) and turn on the heat. Bring pot to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and place the lid on. The lid should be left slightly cracked to allow steam to escape.
- While meat and beans are simmering, chop the onion, garlic, and optional peppers. Sautée in a bit of oil until soft and translucent. Add to the stock pot at around the 1-hour mark.
- At the 2-hour mark, add 1 – 3 Tbsp. of salt(about 17g – 51g) depending on personal taste. Start with just 1 Tbsp. and see how you like it. Remember, it’s much easier to add more salt later than it is to take salt out of a dish.
- Continue simmering until the meat is tender and falls off the bone (around 3.5 hours).
- Remove meat and bones from the pot and set aside to cool down. Once it’s cool enough to touch, shred with fingers or fork. Shredding with fingers makes it easier to remove excess fat. Discard the bones.
- At the 4-hour mark, turn off the heat and add the shredded meat and canned hominy to the pot.
- Garnish with avocado slices or sour cream if you wish, and serve.
- Makes about 8 servings, maybe a little more or less.
- Save some as leftovers; I think the taste and texture improve once it’s been chilled overnight and then reheated.
