Traditional

Pollo en Mole

Name: Pollo en Mole
Prep time: 31 min
Cook time: 59 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 12 tacos
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: 2 1/2 lb Bone-in chicken thighs; 1/2 White onion, halved; 3 Garlic cloves; 1 Bay leaf; 1 tbsp Salt; 8 oz Mole poblano paste, good quality; 2 tbsp Lard or neutral oil; 1 oz Mexican chocolate, chopped; 3 to 4 cups Reserved poaching broth; to taste Salt and a pinch of sugar; 12 Corn tortillas; 2 tbsp Sesame seeds, toasted; 1/2 White onion, slivered; 1/4 cup Cilantro leaves

Poached chicken draped in brick-dark mole poblano — toasted chiles, warm spice, and a whisper of chocolate in slow balance. Frying a good paste hard in lard and thinning it with the poaching broth honors the from-scratch original in a single afternoon.

Time: 1 hr 30 min
Heat
Yield: 12 tacos
Region: Puebla

Ingredients

Chicken and broth

Mole

To build

Per-100g nutrition (10 ingredients verified)

Ingredient	kcal	Protein	Fat	Carbs
Bone-in chicken thighs	196	15.2 g	15.2 g	0 g
Garlic cloves	100	0 g	0 g	20 g
Bay leaf	0	0 g	0 g	0 g
Salt	0	0 g	0 g	1330 g
Mole poblano paste, good quality	312	12.5 g	6.3 g	50 g
Lard or neutral oil	902	0 g	100 g	0 g
Salt and a pinch of sugar	400	5 g	17.5 g	60 g
Corn tortillas	188	3.1 g	1.6 g	40.6 g
Sesame seeds, toasted	631	20.5 g	61.2 g	11.7 g
Cilantro leaves	0	0 g	0 g	0 g

Values are per 100 g of the listed ingredient. Nutrition data: USDA FoodData Central (snapshot 2026-09-11). Ingredients without a verified match are omitted.

Method

Simmer the chicken with the onion, garlic, bay leaf, and salt until tender and cooked through, skimming as it goes.
Pull the chicken, strain and reserve the broth, and shred the meat off the bones.
Fry the mole paste in hot lard, mashing and scraping constantly, until it darkens a shade and smells toasty.
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Whisk in hot broth a cup at a time and simmer, stirring often, until the mole is glossy and coats a spoon. Melt in the chocolate and season with salt and a pinch of sugar.
Fold the shredded chicken into the mole and warm it through gently.
Warm the tortillas on a comal, fill with chicken in mole, and shower each taco with toasted sesame, slivered onion, and cilantro.