Chicken Chile Verde (Quick and Easy Pressure-Cooker Version)

The first time we made Serious Eats’ Easy Pressure Cooker Green Chile with Chicken (from which this recipe is adapted), it was astonishingly good — considering how absurdly simple and quick it was to put together. Still, we thought it could be a little better, so we pulled out the InstantPot and made a few minor but worthwhile improvements.

It’s pretty great as is, but if you want to add a bit of toasty flavor, toast the chiles and garlic cloves on a hot comal or dry skillet till charred mostly all over before peeling the garlic and seeding and stemming the chiles. (The difference between toasting them and not is minimal, though, so if you don’t have time, don’t sweat it.) Serve the chile verde with warm corn tortillas — hand-made, if possible.

Serves 6.

Ingredients

3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs

3/4 pounds tomatillos, husked and quartered

1 pound poblano chiles (charred or raw; see headnote), seeded, de-stemmed and roughly chopped

6 ounces Anaheim peppers (charred or raw), seeded, de-stemmed and roughly chopped

2 serrano chiles (charred or raw), seeded and roughly chopped

1 medium white onion, roughly chopped

6 cloves garlic, peeled (charred before peeling, or raw)

1 tablespoon cumin seed, toasted in a small skillet till fragrant, then ground in a mortar or spice grinder

Sea salt to taste

1/2 cup loosely packed cilantro (leaves & stems) plus more for garnish

1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce, such as Red Boat

2 tablespoons masa harina

Crumbled queso blanco for garnish, plus additional for serving (optional)

Warm tortillas and lime wedges for serving

Instructions

1. Turn on the pressure cooker, set on sauté, and add the chicken, tomatillos, poblanos, Anaheims, serranos, onions, garlic, cumin seed and 1 teaspoon of salt. As soon as you hear it start to sizzle, seal the pressure cooker and cook on high pressure for 15 minutes. Manually release the steam.

2. Use tongs to remove the chicken pieces to a shallow bowl. While they cool a bit, add the cilantro to the pressure cooker, then blitz with an immersion blender (or in a blender or food processor) till chunky-smooth. Stir in the Asian fish sauce, then add salt to taste. Stir in the masa harina and keep warm.

3. Use two forks to shred the chicken (I like to leave some larger pieces). Stir the chicken into the sauce, then transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with cilantro and (if desired) crumbled queso blanco. Serve with warm tortillas and lime wedges.

Recipe notes

• Because the Serious Eats version came out a bit thin when we cooked exactly as directed, we made it again, stirring in a couple tablespoonfuls of masa harina (a traditional thickener for these types of braises) into the finished dish. That’s reflected in this adaptation.

• Because the Instant Pot is all about ease, our recipe uses boneless, skinless chicken thighs instead of using the skin-on, bone-in thighs the original recipe calls for, saving the step of removing the chicken’s skin and bones. We detected no flavor loss whatsoever.

• Because the flavor of the original recipe was exceedingly bright — maybe even a wee bit too bright, to our taste — we added an optional garnish of crumbled queso blanco, which rounds out the flavors beautifully. If you’re wrapping the chile verde into tacos, some crumbled queso blanco added in each one is lovely.

• The recipe calls for putting poblano, Anaheim and serrano chiles raw into the pressure cooker; onions and garlic are added raw as well. Because in a traditional Mexican version of chile verde the chiles and garlic would typically be toasted on a comal, we tried charring them in their skins on a dry skillet before adding. That added a subtle charry, roasty flavor that improved the dish noticeably but not so much that we’re including the extra step. Go and ahead and do that only if you feel like it and have an extra few minutes (meanwhile, it’s easier to seed charred chiles than raw). 

• We tried charring the onion and tomatillos, as well — the payoff was less, and it’s a little messier.

• We also tried browning the chicken to see whether that added depth of flavor. It did, but so minimally that the extra step does not seem worth it even if you have the time.