Chili verde is a dish native to Northern Mexico. It is a form of stew, traditionally prepared with pork shoulder, although other cuts of pork and sometimes even chicken may appear in chile verde. There are a number of variations on basic chili verde, and purists will usually assure you that their version is “authentic.” In fact, like many ethnic dishes, chili verde is prepared in a variety of ways in its native country, so it is safe to say that whichever version you like the best is probably authentic, at least for your purposes!

The base of chili verde is slow-cooked meat, which is simmered in broth and a mixture of other ingredients until the meat is essentially falling apart. Some people eat chili verde on its own, sometimes with tortilla chips or tortillas to absorb the liquid. This dish can also be wrapped in burritos or tacos, although this practice is more common in Mexican restaurants in the United States. As the “verde,” which means “green,” would suggest, the broth used to make chili verde is green.

At a minimum, the chili verde broth includes crushed green chilies, often a mixture of varieties for added flavor, along with garlic, pepper, salt, and onions. Some cooks also add oregano and cilantro, often ground into a paste so that the flavor is distributed evenly in the sauce. The heat of chili verde can be adjusted by playing with the varieties of chilies used and the number of chilies included in the dish, and cooks can also reduce the heat by deseeding the chilies first.

In Northern Mexico and the American Southwest, many people also add tomatillos to their chili verde, sometimes roasting the fruit first to create a deeper, more complex flavor. Other cooks add tomatoes, and some cooks in Central and Southern Mexico like to throw potato chunks into their chili verde as well. In any case, lime juice is frequently squeezed over chili verde just before serving, to create a tangy flavor.

Some markets, especially those which carry Mexican ingredients, carry chili verde mixtures in a can, allowing cooks to blend the mixture with a little broth and use it as-is. However, as you can see from the list of ingredients above, chili verde is not terribly difficult to make from scratch, and using base ingredients can allow cooks to play with flavors and spice levels. If tomatillos, an ingredient which some people think are critical, are not available, you may be able to find them canned, or use tomatoes instead, with a hint of sugar to cut the acid from the tomatoes and approximate the sweet flavor of tomatillos.