This easy and delicious Venison Pozole recipe is the ultimate comfort food. When thinking of authentic pozole, succulent fatty pork is likely to come to mind. But in this recipe, I opt for cuts of venison that yield tender results when cooked low and slow. As far as which cuts to use, necks, shoulders, shanks, and rib meat work well here.
Looking for more hearty venison recipes? Check out my venison stew and venison slow cooker recipe collections.
Be Prepared With Extra Stock
Pozole is prone to absorbing excess liquid due to the hominy. Keep a little extra venison stock or chicken stock on hand as needed for cooking or to spruce up leftovers.
Ingredients Substitutions
If you’re not a fan of chile-forward venison stews, you can try leaving half of the chiles out. In its place, you can try adding a little achiote paste for the rich red color everyone is after in Pozole Rojo. Achiote will slightly alter the flavor, but it’s a welcome addition in my home.
How to Store Leftover Pozole?
This is one of those slow cooker dishes that gets better with time. The flavors greatly enhance when stored in the refrigerator, tightly covered with a lid, for a day or two.
You can also freeze pozole. When stored in a food-safe container with a tight-fitting lid, it will last in the freezer for two months. Place the frozen pozole in your refrigerator the day before you plan to serve it to thaw.
Slow cooker cooking times
The cooking vessel and cut of meat that you are using will dictate the length of the cook. I used a crockpot on the low setting, and my protein of choice was venison rib meat and neck meat. This took around 10 hours to cook. If you use the high setting on your crockpot, you’re looking at around an 8-hour cooking time.
What to serve this with?
I like to add crispy corn tostadas or tortilla chips for some crunch. For color and extra flavor, I garnish with radishes, lime, cilantro, onion, hot sauce, and thinly sliced cabbage. And to make this dish even heartier, serving it over a bed of rice is never a bad idea!
More Venison Recipes
- Venison Breakfast Sausage
- Venison Sausage Gravy and Biscuits
- Venison Boudin Sausage
- Venison Soup with Bacon and Barley
Lastly, if you make this venison slow cooker pozole recipe, be sure to leave a comment or tag me on Instagram! I thoroughly enjoy hearing feedback and checking out the photos of recipes that you’ve made.
VENISON POZOLE ROJO
Ingredients
- 5 dried ancho chiles (stemmed and seeded)
- 1 head of garlic, (peeled and roughly chopped)
- 2 pounds venison stew meat (shank, neck or shoulder meat)
- 1 large white onion, small dice
- 4 carrots, large dice
- 6 celery stalks, large dice
- 2 tablespoons dried Oregano
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 5 cups canned hominy, drained
- 3 quarts venison or chicken stock
- salt to taste
TOPPINGS FOR SERVING
- lime
- chopped cabbage or lettuce
- tostadas or tortilla chips
- cilantro
- radishes
- avocado
- rice
- hot sauce
Instructions
- Rehydrate the chilis. Bring enough water to cover the chilis to a simmer on the stove or in the microwave. Place the chiles in a bowl, then pour the water over them. Place another small plate on top of the chiles to keep them submerged. Cover the entire bowl with another larger plate or plastic wrap. Let them hydrate for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the slow cooker. While the chilis are hydrating, pre-heat your slow cooker.
- Puree the chiles. Add the rehydrated chilis to a blender or food processor. Pour in enough warm water to make a thin paste, then puree the chiles. Set them in the refrigerator for later.
- Start the cooking process. Place the venison in the slow cooker, then add the remaining ingredients, except the hominy and chile puree.
- Cover the cooker and cook on the low setting until the meat is fork-tender. This can take around 10 hours with venison depending on which cut of meat you are using.
- Around 1 to 2 hours before serving, add the chile puree and hominy to the remaining ingredients and let it cook for 1 more hour. (If you're in a time crunch and need to cook everything at once, you can add these in with the other ingredients in step 4).
- Serve: Serve this up with any of the listed ingredients above. This recipe is great for serving directly from the slow cooker while it's being kept warm.
NOTES
- Rehydrate and blend the chiles first. Soak them for about 20 minutes, then puree them with enough warm water to make a thin paste before adding them to the slow cooker.
- Use the right venison cuts. Necks, shoulders, shanks, rib meat, or boneless stew meat work best because they stay tender through the long cook.
- Start without the hominy. Put the venison, onion, carrots, celery, oregano, cumin, and stock in the slow cooker first. Cook until the meat is fork-tender, then add the chile puree and hominy near the end.
- Cook until the meat is fork-tender. On low, this recipe takes about 10 hours with neck or rib meat, and on high, about 8 hours. Go by tenderness, not the clock.
- Add the hominy near the end. Stir in the chile puree and hominy about 1 to 2 hours before serving so the hominy does not sit in the broth all day and soak up too much liquid.
- Keep extra stock nearby. Pozole tends to tighten up as the hominy cooks and again in the fridge, so add a little more venison or chicken stock if it gets too thick.
- Use dried hominy carefully. If you are using dried pozole corn instead of canned hominy, cook it ahead of time because the post notes it can take up to 5 hours of simmering first.
- Serve it with fresh toppings. Lime, cabbage or lettuce, cilantro, radishes, avocado, hot sauce, tostadas, tortilla chips, or rice all fit this recipe well.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation. Nutrition is per serving.
