One of the most satisfying wins for a busy cook is bolstering their repertoire with a dish that’s tasty and simple and can be made days ahead of serving (or, if frozen, weeks ahead).
Extra points if it can be served in a few different ways so that it never gets boring. One recipe that fits this bill? Chilorio, often called Mexico’s pulled pork.
Originating in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, chilorio is a mixture of tender shreds of pork shoulder and a vivid, fruity puree of rehydrated dried chiles with onion, garlic, some vinegar, and a hint of warm spices.
It’s perfect for spooning into flour tortillas, dolloping on top of a bean-slathered tostada, or nestling against a pile of breakfast potatoes and topping with a runny fried egg.
Perfecting the Cook
Making the chile puree was straightforward: Rehydrate dried chiles in hot water along with some spices and dried Mexican oregano and then blend with onion, garlic, and vinegar until smooth.
But after that, the recipes I found diverged. Some called for simmering the meat in salted water with onion and bay leaves and marrying it with the chile puree only in the final stage of cooking.
But other recipes combined the puree with the raw meat and cooked them together, either on the stovetop or in the oven.
After trying both methods, I went with the latter, which more thoroughly melded the flavors of the pork and sauce. And it was easy.
After the chilorio cooked unattended in the oven for 2 hours, all I had to do was mash the tender meat into the sauce, simmer quickly to drive off excess moisture, and serve.
“If I asked 10 people to come to my house with their chilorios, there would be 10 versions of it, and I’m certain that every one of them would be delicious.”
——Chef and cookbook author Rick Martínez
Chilorio Any Way
Here are a few of our favorite ways to use chilorio:
- Top a tostada Sandwich it in bolillo or telera bread to make a torta
- Add it to a breakfast plate along with eggs and fried potatoes
- Fold it into a burrito
- Swap it for beef or chicken in enchiladas
A Pair of Chiles
When it comes to choosing chiles and spices to use for chilorio, the James Beard Award–winning chef and cookbook author Rick Martínez, who chatted with me from his home in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, encouraged me to follow my heart rather than any strict rules.
He assured me that Mexican cooks’ chilorio recipes are as varied and customized as American cooks’ chili recipes.
“If I asked 10 people to come to my house with their chilorios, there would be 10 versions of it, and I’m certain that every one of them would be delicious,” Martínez said. “And no one is going to point a finger and say, ‘That’s not the way you do it.’”
Sign up for the Cook's Insider newsletter
The latest recipes, tips, and tricks, plus behind-the-scenes stories from the Cook's Illustrated team.
Through multiple tests, I found that I preferred the complexity that resulted from using two distinct chile varieties: anchos for their almost raisin-like sweetness and guajillos for their tomatoey twang and slight earthiness.
And for my tastes, using a lot of spices such as cinnamon, allspice, cumin seeds, and clove obscured the savoriness of the pork itself.
When I pared it back to just ½ teaspoon each of cumin and black peppercorns and a single clove, the pork, chile, and spice flavors balanced harmoniously.
Juicy, Tender Pork
Traditional chilorio recipes call for as much as ⅔ cup of vinegar, which makes historical sense: High acidity would have preserved the dish a bit longer before the era of widespread refrigeration.
And tangy vinegar is often handy in balancing the richness of pork shoulder, but since a too-low pH can make proteins clump together and squeeze out moisture, I worried that adding so much of it would dry out the meat.
So I made one batch of chilorio with just 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and another batch with ½ cup, which was the mid-range of the high-vinegar recipes I’d seen.
As expected, the batch with more vinegar was brighter and fruitier—but the meat was actually softer and more moist too (see “Use pH to Keep Meat Moist”). For flavor reasons, I dialed back the vinegar to ⅓ cup and was happy to see that the effect remained unchanged.
Use pH to Keep Meat Moist
For years, our go-to method for keeping meat juicy has been a brief baking soda soak. Raw meat naturally sits at a “zero-charge zone” pH (around 5.2), where its proteins lack a net electrical charge. Without a charge to keep them apart, these proteins clump tightly together when cooked and squeeze out moisture. Baking soda, which is alkaline, raises the surface pH above this zone. This gives the proteins a negative charge and, like matching magnets, they repel each other, which prevents excessive clumping and keeps the meat moist when cooked.
In developing this recipe, it became clear that acid—such as apple cider vinegar—does the same thing but in the opposite direction. By dropping the pH below the neutral zone, it gives the proteins a net positive charge, which makes them repel each other just as effectively. A chilorio batch with minimal vinegar stayed near that tightly clumped 5.2 pH, but a batch with ½ cup of vinegar dropped to a tenderizing 4.8. Going forward, we’ll use vinegar to keep meat juicy, but cautiously: If the pH drops too far (towards 4.0), the proteins coagulate tightly and exude their water.
I folded some of the meat into tortillas to make tacos, one of the most popular ways to eat chilorio, and froze the rest: Weeks of burritos, tostadas, and enchiladas awaited me.
Tacos Chilorio
Mexico's tender, chile-spiced pulled pork is perfect for spooning into flour tortillas.
Get the Recipe