What I’m Making: Instant Pot Pazole

There is a great food truck that is in Decorah Iowa in the non-winter weather months.  The food is great and our family has made a connection with Lesley the owner of Lesley’s Taco Truck.   She’s a great person and our family very much admires her hard work in getting and managing the food truck.

As the season closed out this year they started offering Pazole.  If you haven’t had it, it’s a Mexican soup and we all really love it.  It has a combo of hominy and pork.  Being the food truck is closed for the season and we all needed a fix, Kalissa and tried to make a batch at home.  It was a FLOP.  We had looked online trying to find a recipe.  The one we tried was really intense.  There was a laundry list of ingredients.  It took forever to put together and then it was so spicey we almost couldn’t eat it.

A week or so later, I decided to try again.  I decided to just wing it.  I wasn’t going to look up any recipes.  I was just going to think about the flavors I remembered and do the best I could with what I had to replicate them.  I would put things together and taste…add and taste some more.  This is a picture of the main ingredients I used.  This made a big batch.


I am writing the recipe here so we can remember it because it was… REALLY good.  We all loved it and Kalissa vowed that the next time they butchered a pig, all of the pork roasts were coming to me so I could make this again and again.  We all REALLY loved it.

Hominy-2 big and one small can-  I found it at Walmart in the Mexican food section.  Next time I think I’d do three big cans
1 can tomato paste
1 can of green chilis
1 can Rotel-type tomatoes with peppers

I put all of that in the Instant Pot then added:

2 Tablespoons better than Bouillion Roasted Garlic
4 Tablespoons Knorr chicken Flavored I found it at Walmart in the Mexican food section.
1 chopped onion
2 tablespoons garlic
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons of chili powder
1 teaspoon salt

1 pork roast cut up into big chunks…fat included.  Lesleys chunks are even bigger that the chunks I cut up.  I’m guessing it was a 2-3 pound roast.

six cups of water-be your own judge on this. You might want more hearty soup or less hearty.

It looked like this…

I put the lid on the Instant Pot and set it for 20 minutes on the Meat setting.

I immediately released pressure.

Here’s how it looked ready to eat.  Traditionally people put lettuce, radishes, lime, or avocado.   We just had it plain.  To be honest, we were all excited that it turned out as good as it did, we didn’t even think about the other goodies that could be added.


So…we are okay and will tide ourselves over until Lesley opens the taco truck back up in the spring.  This was really good…likely as good as Lesley’s…at least that’s what Kalissa says.  Me…Lesley’s smile and great attitude make me love hers so much more!!  There is so much to be said for a friendly smile and good customer service.  Lesley has me beat on that!!

If you give this Mexican soup recipe a try, please let me know.  Hominy isn’t something our family has eaten in the past.  It’s just not a common food in NE Iowa so we were skeptical at first but have grown to love it!

10 thoughts on “What I’m Making: Instant Pot Pazole”

  1. Love parole ,it’s sooooo good especially in cold weather. We make it just like you did. Add corn chips, sliced cabbage, radishes, creama if you want. We love Mexican food.

  2. I really like hominy. We had it a lot in north central Iowa when I was young. Unfortunately, my husband doesn’t share that taste with me.

  3. In New Mexico, it’s called “posole”, and it’s yummy! I make a simple version with chicken, although pork is the traditional meat to use. My recipe calls for fresh spinach added at the very end, cooked just till it’s wilted.

  4. I grew up eating hominy. I never knew it was considered a Mexican food. I might try this sometime in a much smaller amount as a pot the size you made would last me for several weeks.☺️ Sounds and looks tastey.

  5. No.10 cans of hominy was the one thing we got donations of when we did a homeless ministry. It didn’t matter what we did to it they loved it.

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