Cole Cooks: Instant Pot Carne Adovada
Since our recent visit to New Mexico, I have been on a kick recreating some of my favorite dishes. Carne Adovada is a pork stew that is a classic of New Mexican cuisine. Using the Instant Pot, I have developed a recipe for Carne Adovada that is easy to make.
Jump Ahead To
Go To Recipe
The key to making a good Carne Adovada is the red sauce. You could use a commercial red sauce but it is easy to make your own. I like to make large batches I can freeze and use in multiple recipes.
I looked at many Carne Adovada recipes and decided in this case simple is best. Serious Eats has a fairly complicated Carne Adovada recipe that calls for ingredients like raisins and fish sauce. My recipe is not that complicated. It basically involves browning the pork in the Instant Pot, adding the red sauce and cooking at high pressure for 20 minutes.
The main inspiration for my recipe was the 2012 cookbook Tasting New Mexico: Recipes from 100 Years of Distinctive New Mexico Cooking. This book was written for the 100th anniversary of New Mexico’s statehood (state number 47).
Carne Adovada can be served on its own or wrapped in a tortilla to make a burrito. A traditional way it is served in New Mexico is with sopaipillas. Sopaipillas are a fluffy fry bread.
Because Carne Adovada is so simple to make, I also made some sopaipillas to complicate the matter. However, for a quick dish simply serve the carne adovada as a stew.
For more details on the red sauce recipe make sure and go here. See our Pork Chili Verde recipe for a similar dish that is made with a green sauce. New Mexico green sauce is arguably even more famous than its red sauce.
Make sure and check out our Top 10 Instant Pot Recipes.
Which Instant Pot to Buy
There are quite a few variations on the Instant Pot. Our recommendation is to keep it simple and buy the basic 6-quart version. This is what we own and we do not use all the features. More expensive versions have additional functions, but we like to keep it basic. Our version was $100 but we can usually find it for about $70.
Instant Pot Carne Adovada
Ingredients
- 2 pounds pork loin or shoulder cut in 1-inch cubes
- 2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 cups red chili sauce see recipe
Instructions
- Season pork cubes with salt and pepper and toss with half a cup of red sauce and let marinade in refrigerator 2 hours or overnight.
- Set Instant Pot to sauté. Add pork and cook until brown on all sides.
- Add remaining red sauce to pot. Cook on high pressure for 20 minutes and let natural release for 20 minutes.
New Mexico Red Chili Sauce
Ingredients
- 8 oz Dried New Mexico chiles
- 4 cups beef stock chicken stock, vegetable stock or water
- 2 Tablespoons lard or vegetable oil
- 1 onion roughly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic roughly chopped
- 2 Tablespoons flour
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon Mexican oregano or marjoram
- 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon honey
Instructions
- Heat a pot of water to boiling. In a large skillet, toast whole chiles on both sides until steaming. Work in batches if necessary. Add toasted chilis to boiling water. Reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes. When cool enough to handle remove stem and seeds.
- In a blender combine chiles with stock or water. Work in batches if necessary. Puree the chiles.
- In large skillet heat lard or vegetable oil. Add onion, garlic and flour. Cook until golden, stirring frequently. Add chili puree, cumin, Mexican oregano (or marjoram), vinegar, salt, and honey.
- Bring mixture to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool 15 minutes.
- When mixture is cool process in a blender. Work in batches if necessary.
I love your Carne Adobada recipe for the Instant Pot. Thank you for the simplicity. I live in New Mexico and am Mexican from El Paso. I have experimented with making red chile sauce. Yours is great. Just a suggestion for the chicken broth use KNORR Chick boullion (it has to be KNORR to taste authentic). It will make your sauce to die for and I also add some bacon grease before blending it all up. It really adds a lot of flavor. Thank you so much for showing me how to make the Carne Adobada in my Instant Pot.
Laura, Thank you for the kind comments. We will try the chicken bouillon and bacon grease is always awesome!