Carne adovada is New Mexican pork slowly cooked in red chile sauce. The pork usually rests in the sauce before it is baked until tender, and it is served as a plate, in a burrito or in other wrapped forms.
It is one of the signature dishes of new mexico food. The sections below cover what defines it, how the marinade works, how to cook it and how to spot it on a menu.
What carne adovada is
In New Mexico, carne adovada is a specific dish of pork simmered slowly in a red chile sauce, as the Lemon Blossoms recipe puts it. It sits firmly inside New Mexican cuisine rather than being a generic chile stew. The meat is the point, and the sauce is both its seasoning and its cooking medium.
The same idea turns up in Mexican markets. Their meat sections carry large trays of pork or beef sitting in a thick red chile sauce, according to the Epicurious recipe from the cookbook Tacos by Mark Miller with Benjamin Hargett and Jane Horn (Ten Speed Press). That same source says the sauce acts as both tenderizer and flavoring, which explains why the dish works with tough, fatty cuts that need time.
How it differs from other chile pork dishes
The nearest comparison is chile con carne. The Lemon Blossoms recipe describes carne adovada as being like chile con carne but made with pork. The difference lies in the order of work. In the recipes covered here, the red chile sauce is made first, and the pork goes into it for a rest before it is cooked. The sauce is therefore a marinade as well as a braising liquid, and the finished dish is pork in a thick, dark red sauce rather than a loose bowl of chile.
Choose carne adovada when you want tender pork with a concentrated chile flavor. If you want a broader chile-and-meat stew, chile con carne is the more general dish.
The red chile marinade
The marinade is built from dried red chile pods, not from chile powder stirred into oil. The Excited About Food recipe calls for 8 ounces (about 25) whole dried New Mexican red chile pods per batch. Cibolo Junction gives the same 8 ounces as about 25 to 30 pods, since pod size varies. A lighter braise version on TVWBB uses 4 ounces of dried New Mexico chilies, stemmed and seeded.
The pods are prepared in a few steps before they meet the pork.
- Toast first. Excited About Food toasts the pods in the oven for about 5 minutes before pureeing them.
- Simmer the sauce. The same recipe simmers the pureed sauce for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, before the pork goes in.
- Add warm spices sparingly. The Epicurious recipe adds just 1/4 teaspoon each of toasted ground cumin seed, ground canela and ground allspice, so the chile still leads.
From pork to pot: the cooking stages
The method is short on technique and long on waiting. Most of the difference between recipes is how small the pork is cut and how long it cooks.
- Cut the pork shoulder. Pork shoulder or pork butt is the cut the Lemon Blossoms recipe calls essential, because it breaks down slowly into tender meat. Epicurious uses 2 pounds cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Excited About Food uses 3 pounds of boneless shoulder in 1- to 2-inch cubes.
- Marinate in the sauce. Excited About Food stirs the pork into the chile sauce and refrigerates it overnight. Cibolo Junction asks for at least 4 hours covered in the refrigerator.
- Sear if the recipe calls for it. Epicurious sautés the pork in oil until golden on all sides, about 5 minutes, before covering and baking.
- Bake covered until tender. Stir the pot during cooking, and judge doneness by tenderness. The Epicurious recipe stirs at least twice.
Two oven approaches compared
| Recipe | Pork and cut size | Oven setting | Planning use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Epicurious (Tacos cookbook) | 2 pounds pork shoulder, 1/2-inch cubes | 325°F, about 40 minutes covered, after about 5 minutes of searing | Small cubes shorten the oven time, so this suits a shorter cook once the sauce is made. |
| Excited About Food | 3 pounds boneless pork shoulder, 1- to 2-inch cubes | 300°F, about 3 hours covered, after an overnight marinade | Larger pieces need a long, low bake, so plan ahead for a larger batch. |
Figures are from the Epicurious recipe and the Excited About Food recipe.
Other recipes land between the two. Cibolo Junction bakes at 325°F for 2.5 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally, and the TVWBB braise takes about 2 to 2.5 hours at 325°F until the pork is fork-tender. Treat the clock as a guide and the texture as the test. The pork is ready when it is completely tender and the sauce has cooked down, as Excited About Food puts it.
Carne adovada burrito and other menu forms
The burrito is the form most people meet first. Excited About Food calls it one of the most popular ways to enjoy carne adovada, wrapped in a white tortilla with some of the meat juice and grated cheddar. The sauce that clings to the pork does much of the work, so the filling needs little else.
The pork is not limited to burritos. The Lemon Blossoms recipe lists tacos, quesadillas and tostadas, and also serving it over rice. Because it is cooked pork in a sauce, any of these forms is a reasonable way to taste it. If you are unsure, the burrito shows the pork and its sauce together most clearly.
Finding it on a menu
Look for the pork-in-red-chile description more than the exact wording. Carne adovada may appear as a plate, a burrito filling, a taco or a quesadilla. Whichever form you order, the dish is pork that has cooked in red chile sauce, with the meat tender enough to pull apart.
For a sit-down evening in the capital, the guide to fine dining santa fe is the place to start. Pair a savory plate with a sweet finish, such as biscochitos, the state cookie.
Frequently asked questions
Is carne adovada always made with pork?
In New Mexico it is a dish of pork simmered slowly in red chile sauce. Mexican market versions are sold as pork or beef in thick red chile sauce, so beef can appear in that tradition.
Can I cook it without an oven?
Yes. The Lemon Blossoms recipe lists stove-top, oven-braised, Instant Pot (pressure cooker) and crockpot methods for the stew.
Is there a milder chile option than the hottest pods?
New Mexico chiles work well, according to Lemon Blossoms, and so do dried ancho and pasilla chiles, which that recipe describes as milder than de árbol.