The Jarred Ingredient Ina Garten Adds To Her Spicy Pork Posole Soup

When soup season rolls around, foodies start thinking about warming, comforting posole. Ina Garten is no stranger to expediting cooking processes, having filled entire cookbooks (plural) with tips for making elevated meals with simplified preparations. Today, we're zeroing-in on one of Garten's most ingenious tips which makes this dimensional, crowd-pleasing meal even quicker to prep. Her secret? One medium jar of store-bought salsa verde.

If you've never made it before, pork posole (aka pozole) is a hearty traditional Mexican soup, and it's all about hominy (hulled corn kernels), meat, and vegetables married in broth and loaded with toppings. Posole verde, the type in Garten's recipe, is traditional, but posole rojo (made with roasted tomatoes) and posole blanco (without any chilis at all) are the other two common variants of the dish.

Following classic 100% from-scratch preparation, as in this slow cooker chicken posole verde, fresh tomatillos are roasted or broiled with Anaheim and poblano peppers, yellow onion, and fresh garlic cloves. Once roasted, the veggies are cooled and blended in a food processor before getting added to the soup pot. In Garten's version, this roasted vegetable medley is swapped for store-bought jarred salsa verde, a popular Mexican condiment made from tart green tomatillos mixed with spicy chili peppers and savory onions. With a one ingredient substitution, Garten's posole skips a lengthy prep step entirely, saving foodies time and from turning on their ovens.

Making your next batch of posole with pre-made salsa verde can also be a great opportunity to customize your soup's spiciness level. The amount of chilis in the mix will determine the salsa verde's intensity, which can vary, so be sure to select your desired spiciness (i.e. mild, medium hot) when you buy the jarred salsa at the grocery store. Alternatively, Ina Garten's posole soup hack can also showcase seasonal produce in the summer, or use up a batch of homemade salsa verde during the winter months.

Beyond the jarred salsa, Garten's posole combines other hearty, flavorful vegetables like chopped yellow onion, poblano pepper, yellow or orange bell peppers, white hominy, and black beans, according to her recipe. The diced pork loin and veggies get simmered together in the salsa verde in a large stockpot or Dutch oven for slow-roasted flavor and a succulent bite. Alongside the liquid from the salsa verde, other moisture elements from chicken stock and the pork cooking liquid compose the soup's broth. To serve, Garten garnishes her tomatillo salsa-loaded posole soup with sliced avocado, scallions, radishes, tortilla chips, shredded cheddar cheese, and sour cream. Crumbled cotija and shredded green cabbage would also make flavorful, texturally compelling toppings for each bowlful.