Chiles en Nogada
Fire-roasted poblano chiles stuffed with a sweet-savory picadillo of pork, beef, and fruit, ladled with a fresh walnut cream sauce and scattered with pomegranate seeds to form the green, white, and red of the Mexican flag. Popular legend credits Augustinian nuns in Puebla with inventing it for Agustin de Iturbide in 1821, but a surviving 1714 manuscript describes a similar stuffed-chile-in-walnut-sauce dish decades earlier, so historians now treat the patriotic origin story as legend layered onto a genuinely older dish rather than settled fact.
Meat
⚠ Contains: Dairy, Tree Nut. Always check your own ingredients — this isn't a guarantee for severe allergies.
Ingredients
- 6 large poblano chiles
- 500g ground pork
- 250g ground beef
- 1 white onion, finely diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 ripe tomatoes, diced
- 1 plantain, diced
- 1 pear, diced
- 1 peach, diced
- 1 apple, diced
- 1/3 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup slivered almonds
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground clove
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- Salt, to taste
- 1 1/2 cups fresh walnuts, peeled
- 200g queso fresco or cream cheese
- 1/2 cup Mexican crema or heavy cream
- 1/4 cup milk
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp sherry, optional
- 1 pomegranate, seeds removed
- Fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
Steps
- Roast the poblanos directly over a flame or under a broiler until blistered black all over. Place in a covered bowl or bag for 15 minutes, then peel off the skins. Slit one side and remove the seeds and veins, keeping the stems intact.
- Heat the oil and saute the onion and garlic until soft. Add the ground pork and beef, and cook until browned.
- Add the tomatoes and cook 5 minutes, then add the plantain, pear, peach, apple, raisins, almonds, cinnamon, and clove. Simmer uncovered 15-20 minutes until the fruit softens and the liquid reduces. Season with salt and cool slightly.
- For the nogada, soak the peeled walnuts in milk for 1-2 hours if possible. Blend the walnuts, queso fresco, crema, milk, sugar, and sherry until smooth and pourable, then chill.
- Stuff each chile generously with the picadillo mixture.
- Plate the stuffed chiles, ladle the nogada sauce over the top, and scatter with pomegranate seeds and parsley. Serve at room temperature.