Birria de pollo | Chicken Birria
Birria de Pollo is my lighter take on the deeply flavorful Mexican dish traditionally made with beef or goat. Rather than trying to make lean beef imitate traditional birria, I let tender, skin-on chicken thighs shine with a rich sauce made from guajillo, pasilla, and ancho chiles, tomatoes, garlic, onion, warm spices, and a splash of Mexican lager. Pressure cooking makes the chicken fall-apart tender while keeping the cooking time remarkably short.
👩🏻🍳 Tamara Talks – About Birria de Pollo
Is it authentic? NOPE. Authentic birria is a rich, slow-cooked meat stew from Jalisco, Mexico that is traditionally made with goat or beef marinated in dried chiles and spices. Linguistically, the word birria originates from a Mexican Spanish term meaning “exquisite, complex, or a mess/worthless thing,” and is historically used to describe a humble dish that transforsms tough meat and unwanted cuts into a melt-in-your mouth flavor bomb.
Obviously, I took some liberty with my birria de pollo recipe. Traditional birria is commonly associated with goat or beef. I chose chicken thighs because I wanted a lighter preparation, and feel chicken thighs work beautifully with the red chile flavor profile. I use a pressure cooker rather than a long braise. It’s a practical adaptation, but it still achieves the tender, deeply flavored result I was looking for.
My guajillo, pasilla, and ancho chile combination preserves the dried red chile character of birria while giving my chicken version its own flavor profile. My result is more a concentrated red chile sauce than a brothy consommé. I embraced what works best with the chicken.😋
The pièce de résistance of my chicken birria is the chicharrón!!! Just ask Mark. He is now lovingly called the “Chief Chicken Chicharrón Officer.” Chicharrón is a savory, crunchy food typically made by deep-frying pig skin or pork belly. My adaptation is to remove the fatty skins from the chicken thighs, and sizzle them on a comal (or cast iron skillet). The resulting savory, crunch bits are a perfect garnish for the birria de pollo.
I opted to lead with the pressure cooker for this birria recipe. A pressure cooker (Instant Pot, Ninja, stove top pressure cooker, etc.) gets the skin-on, bone-in thighs incredibly tender while extracting flavor from the bones and aromatics, and you can then remove the skin and bones while the chicken is still intact enough to break the succulent chicken into irregular chunks rather than shredded. See the FAQ section for stovetop cooking.
My goal with this birria recipe is to produce the spirit of birria—deep dried-chile flavor, warm spices, tender meat, and that intensely savory sauce – while adapting the dish to my own ingredients, cooking style, and audience… a la “healthyish!”
📋 Ingredients Notes
Here is a quick look at the ingredients in the recipe – it’s handy to use at the grocery store or as a summary of what you need. Skip to the recipe for quantities.
For the Chicken
Red Chile Sauce
🔪 Step-By-Step Instructions
- Step 1 – Either in an electric pressure cooker (ie. Instant Pot) or a stovetop model, sear the chicken thighs with a drizzle of neutral oil. Repeat until all chicken pieces are browned, and set aside. NOTE: While browning the chicken, you can proceed with the red chile sauce.
- Step 2 (above) – After preheating oven to 400℉/204℃, arrange tomatoes, garlic, and onion wedges on a sheet pan. Drizzle with oil. Roast 20 minutes+/- until tomatoes start to collapse, and onions show a little browning. NOTE: Keep a close eye on the garlic to avoid burning. Remove if needed!
- Step 3 – Turn off the oven, and add your dried chiles to the pan, using the residual heat to toast for 2-3 minutes. (See photo below for reference). NOTE: Stems and seeds MUST be removed before toasting! Use kitchen shears to snip off the stem, then make a lengthwise cut and shake out the seeds.
- Step 4 – After removing the seared chicken from the pressure cooker, add the onion, minced garlic, and ground cumin. Sauté until fragrant, and onion is softening. De-glaze with the beer (see Ingredients Notes). Add the 2 1/2 cups of chicken broth, the oregano, cinnamon stick, cloves, bay leaves, salt, and pepper.
- Step 5 – Add the chicken thighs back into the pot, and stir to combine. Pressurize, and cook 25 minutes before doing a 10 minute pressure release. Remove cinnamon stick, cloves, and bay leaves from the pot. Carefully remove chicken thighs to a plate to cool.
- Step 6 – While the chicken thighs cool, make your red chile sauce. Add the vegetables and toasted red chiles to the bowl of your blender.
❓FAQ
The short answer? No. Use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs for the best flavor and texture. I don’t recommend substituting chicken breasts for this recipe. It’s much leaner and more prone to drying out, and it doesn’t have the same connective tissue or richness as thighs. Most importantly, you lose the chicken-skin chicharrón component if you start with skinless breast. Just ask my Chief Chicken Chicharrón Officer (my husband)!😂
Absolutely. If you don’t have a pressure cooker or Instant Pot, you can make this recipe in a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven. Follow the recipe through deglazing and adding the chicken and broth, then cover and simmer gently until the chicken is fall-apart tender, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Continue with the recipe as written, removing the chicken and whole spices before adding and blending the softened chiles. NOTE: DO NOT BOIL!
Birria de pollo freezes beautifully, making it easy to save part of the batch for another meal. Thaw it overnight in the refrigerator and gently reheat it on the stovetop.
Use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs for the best flavor and texture. I don’t recommend substituting chicken breasts for this recipe.
I roast/toast my red chiles with the tomatoes, garlic, and onion. However, you don’t want to cook them as long. Add the prepared dried chiles to the roasting pan during the final few minutes, just until they become fragrant and pliable. Take care not to let them burn, as they can become bitter.
Make once, enjoy twice (or more!): Serve the birria de pollo with cilantro rice, then freeze the remaining chicken and sauce for another meal—or save it for making chicken birria tacos later.
I like a spider to retrieve the chicken thighs as it catches any skins that might slip off.
While this birria recipe is a bit involved for weeknight meals, it is not complicated, and will surely impress company on a more relaxed schedule. Additionally, it freezes beautifully, making it perfect for a freezer meal for another day. I have enough frozen for a couple of meals. Make it once, and enjoy it twice! Look for quesabirria tacos de pollo in the not-too-distant future!
Pressure Cooker Birria de Pollo Recipe
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Ingredients
Chicken Thighs
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil - for searing
- 3 pounds skin on bone-in chicken thighs - don't remove those skins!
- 1 onion - sliced
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 8 ounces lager beer - see Ingredients Notes in post
- 2 ½ cups chicken broth - another cup for the red chile sauce
- 1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 whole cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon sea salt and fresh ground pepper
- garnishes – avocado, cotija, lime wedges, chicharrón - as desired
Red Chiles Mixture
- 2 large tomatoes - halved top to bottom
- 1 medium onion - cut in quarters
- 1 bulb garlic with loose outer layers removed - slice off the top to expose cloves
- 5 dried guajillo chiles - see Notes below for total quantity of red chiles!
- 3 dried pasilla chiles
- 2 dried ancho chiles
- 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil - to drizzle
- 1 cup chicken broth
Instructions
Chicken
- Either on the IP "sear" setting or on medium-high on stovetop model, sear all chicken thighs, and set aside.
- Using the fat from the chicken, add onion, garlic, and ground cumin. Sauté until fragrant (2-3 minutes).
- De-glaze with the beer, scraping to loosen browned bits.
- Add chicken broth, oregano, cinnamon stick, cloves, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine
- Add chicken back to the pot. Bring to "High" pressure, and cook 20 minutes. Do a natural pressure release for 10 minutes before releasing remaining pressure.
- Gently remove chicken pieces from pot, and don't lose the skins! Fish out the whole spices and bay leaves.
Red Chile Sauce
- While the chicken cooks, roast the vegetables. Preheat the oven to 400℉/204℃.
- Arrange halved tomatoes, quartered onion, and garlic bulb on sheet pan. Drizzle lightly with olive oil.
- Roast 20 to 25 minutes until tomatoes collapse and onion shows a bit of browning. Turn off the oven, and add the chiles. Toast 2 to 3 minutes before removing from the oven.
- Add the vegetables and chiles to a high-powered blender with the cup of chicken broth. Purée on high until smooth. NOTE: If your blender cannot achieve a smooth texture, you can push it through a strainer.
To Finish
- Remove the chicken from the bones in chunks or shred as desired, setting aside the skins. Add chicken back into the pot, and bring to a simmer.
- Add the puréed mixture into the pot with the chicken. Taste for seasoning. Simmer while preparing the chicharrón.
- Bring a comal or cast iron skillet to medium-high heat. Place the chicken skin pieces on the hot comal, and let them sizzle until crisp. Rough chop, slice, or leave whole as desired.
- Serve the finished birria de pollo with rice and garnishes as desired. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
NOTE: Macronutrients are an approximation only using unbranded ingredients and MyFitnessPal.com. Please do your own research with the products you’re using if you have a serious health issue or are following a specific diet.
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