I make chicken tinga that is bursting with Mexican spices and resembles the dish I get at my go-to taqueria with red sauce. Suitable for tacos, burritos, quesadillas, flautas, and tostadas.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
Ingredients
- 3 pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup water
- 1 large yellow onion, halved
- 3 peeled whole garlic cloves
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion, diced
- 1 (7 ounce) can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
- 1 (28 ounce) can peeled plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, or more to taste
- 2 tablespoons crumbled cotija cheese, or to taste
Instructions
- Place chicken thighs, chicken stock, water, halved onion, garlic cloves, salt, and oregano in a large pot. Bring to a simmer over high heat; reduce to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes. Remove from heat.
- Transfer onion halves to a bowl with a slotted spoon; transfer chicken thighs to a separate bowl.
- Pour broth through a strainer into a large bowl.
- Heat olive oil in the same pot over medium heat. Add diced onions and cook until beginning to soften, about 4 minutes. Transfer strained liquid to onions. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat; turn heat to medium-low; reduce broth by about half, 15 to 20 minutes.
- Transfer reserved boiled onions to a blender. Add chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. Swirl a bit of water in the can and add to the blender. Add tomatoes. Cover blender with the lid; pulse on and off until mixture is partially blended, then blend on medium speed until smooth, 1 or 2 minutes. Transfer to pot with broth and onions.
- Increase heat to medium-high. Simmer 15 minutes or so, depending on how thick you want the sauce. Reduce heat to medium-low.
- Tear chicken into bite-size pieces and add to the pot. Cook another 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a serving dish; garnish with cilantro and crumbled cotija cheese.
- You can substitute 3 1/2 cups of any fresh or canned tomato product for the (28 ounce) can San Marzano tomatoes.
- Top with the usual suspects like shredded cheese, chopped green onions, sour cream, etc.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 483 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 14 g |
| Cholesterol | 137 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 39 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 1915 mg |
| Sugars | 6 g |
| Fat | 30 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I’ve been to a lot of Mexican restaurants in my life, but I have never seen this dish on a menu. So glad I tried this. The smoky heat of the chipotles married with the tomato base was outstanding! Will definitely make again.
This dish is delicious! Thanks Chef John for never disappointing!! This is now on our regular dinner rotation.
We make this all the time. My family loves it and everyone who tastes it asks for the recipe. It freezes great too.
Well, we have a new staple dinner for the week…this dish is the Bomb!!! No changes to recipe. I did heat up flour tortillas, pack em with mix then covered them in the sauce. Baked on 350 for 25 minutes. Add cheese for last 5 minutes. Topped with the cilantro & sour cream.
Delicious flavor and my kitchen smelled amazing! This is one spicy recipe. My husband and I like spicy and if I were making this for other people who are maybe a little spicy adverse, I would cut it to 1/2 can of chipotle peppers in adobo. I’ll definitely be making this again! Thanks Chef John!
Nice work, John. This is in my opinion, a great recipe to follow. I made my own variations and it ended up being one of the best red sauces I’ve ever made. There’s plenty of room in this recipe to make it your own – sweeter, hotter, more bittter – anywhere you wanna go with it. If you’re not sure, just follow the basic recipe the first time and give the basic profile time to sink in. I’m impressed, John. All the best…
This was good but spicier than expected. I seemed to have a lot of extra sauce. I would make this again but probably halve all of the ingredients except for the chicken. I did enjoy making this and I always love trying out Chef John’s recipes.
This was an incredible receipe! Pretty easy in terms of time spent active in the kitchen but obviously takes time with the different steps. Agree with other reviewers that it was prett spicy with the entire can of peppers and might adjust that slightly next time. Another great receipe from Chef John.
Great recipe! This had a nice heat to it. There was a lot of sauce left. Next time I make it I may triple the meat. Thank you Chef John!
Served on fried flour tortillas with green onions and Cotija cheese!
This was excellent! I was making it for two people, so I just used one pack of boneless skinless chicken thighs from Costco (approximately 1.2 pounds). I cut back on the other ingredients accordingly. I made it in the Instant Pot. I sautéed the chicken thighs briefly in the pot with salt and oregano for a few minutes on each side, then added the remaining ingredients except the cheese and cilantro. I used about five chipotle peppers with adobe sauce from the can. That was a bit much for us although we loved it anyhow but that was really hot! Next time I will only use two or three. I served it with rice, and heated frozen broccoli and cauliflower and then tossed them in extra sauce and served it on the side. It was fantastic! Will definitely make it for company.
Sorry but this recipe was not to our liking at all. To begin with it is time consuming, has a lot of steps, made a lot of dirty dishes, & was very salty. My husband ate it but it’s not a keeper for our files. It might be salvageable by placing it in a tortilla with rice, sliced peppers, & lots of sour cream & salsa.
This is great, smoky, and sooo versatile! We have had it in a burrito and over rice AND (this was a surprise) on a salad with ranch. It was like a Wendy’s taco salad with the volume turn up to 1000!
Very easy and tasty, definitely one to keep on file.
Chef John, I have made many of your recipes & all were so delicious. I had found a recipe for Chicken Chipolte with Adobo Sauce elsewhere, but since I’d never had the sauce at all, I decided I needed to check with the Chef I like the best! It was so good! I was afraid it would be too spicy with the whole can of peppers so used only 3 with some of the sauce. By itself the sauce seemed pretty hot, but with pinto beans, cheddar cheese & fritos it was perfect. I could go a little hotter. We just at this in a bowl, but next time I will try making your shells. I did have a second bowl over cornbread left over from turnip greens, mustard greens & collard greens (with turnips) from last night. Yes, I’m in Louisiana! Thanks for your videos. You make everything easy!
This was so great. I made 1/2 the recipe and it was great.
Very very flavorful. The smokiness of the chipotle peppers is amazing. This is a bit spicier than I am used to. I ended up cutting it with roughly 2 cups of water and a teaspoon of salt to make up for the diluted sodium from the water. Served it with jasmine rice and sour cream (heavily suggest the sour cream, brought it to the next level for me)
Overall, a very delicious recipe for Chicken Tinga! I made minimal changes (e.g. had bone-in chicken thighs which made a much better broth; just save yourself a bowl and transfer the onions…and garlic…to the blender); I knew 7oz of the peppers would be way too spicy for us and used two peppers in adobo sauce, which ended up being a tad spicier than I anticipated. So, I added about 2 cups broth to the blender, which tamed the heat level. In turn, instead of adding all of the broth and reducing it, I just added about 1 cup additional broth and the sauce to the pot with onions and cooked chicken and let it reduce down to our desired thickness. Very good recipe and will make it again!
So happy to find Chef John on YouTube, witty, creative, enjoy the jokes. I’m a new fan! The tinga is delicious, followed exactly, good on the crispy corn tostadas topped with sour cream, a bit of fresh grated Monterey jack and cilantro. After first tasting it, being a gringo, I knew I might use less of the chipotle in adobo next time, but my fellow diner thought it was perfectly spicy. I made some rice to help me with the spiciness. Also the poached chicken is delicious on its own, can see that being incorporated in other dishes, or even just a lovely chicken salad. Beautiful. Thanks, Chef John.
Great recipe. I feel limited to cooking with thighs but taste is amazing!!! Definitely a keeper!!!! Delicious and not as complicated of a recipe as you might think. Had all ingredients in pantry
This is super easy and super tasty! Love it! I make it every few weeks as it’s even better when left for a day or two after cooking. One time I couldn’t get thigh fillets (sold out) so substituted for breasts – worked really well though it took a lot longer to shred the chicken. Satisfied the fussy ‘I only eat breast meat’ people I know.