Shredded chicken in a smoky chipotle-tomato sauce with caramelised onions — Mexico's most beloved weeknight comfort dish.
⭐Inspired by Pati Jinich · 🇲🇽 MexicoThis recipe is inspired by Chef Pati Jinich's faithful documentation of Mexican home cooking and her PBS series 'Pati's Mexican Table.' Tinga — shredded meat in a smoky chipotle sauce — is one of the most beloved family dishes across central Mexico, especially in Puebla. Jinich has championed it for American audiences as a 'Mexican home cooking weeknight champion': fast, deeply flavoured, and infinitely versatile (tacos, tostadas, sandwiches, with rice). This recipe sticks to the home-cooking tradition Jinich has spent her career documenting.
Serves 4
Place the chicken thighs in a pot with 800ml water, half the onion, 1 garlic clove, the bay leaf and 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a simmer and poach 18–20 minutes until cooked through. Lift out, cool slightly and shred with two forks. Reserve 250ml of the cooking broth.
Blend the tomatoes, chipotles in adobo, adobo sauce, and remaining 3 garlic cloves until smooth.
Heat the oil in a wide skillet over medium-high heat. Add the remaining sliced onions and cook 8 minutes, stirring, until deeply golden and caramelised at the edges.
Add the cumin and oregano to the onions and toast 30 seconds. Pour in the blended tomato-chipotle sauce — it will spit and bubble vigorously, that's correct. Fry the sauce for 5 minutes, stirring, until it darkens and thickens. Add the shredded chicken and 200ml of reserved broth. Simmer 8 more minutes until the sauce coats the chicken and the flavours meld. Taste and adjust salt.
Pile the tinga onto warm corn tortillas. Top with sliced avocado, crumbled queso fresco and chopped coriander. Squeeze lime over the top. Serve with extra warm tortillas and Mexican rice on the side.
Chicken thighs are essential — breasts dry out and shred poorly.
Don't skip caramelising the onions — they are the dish's flavour backbone.
Tinga improves overnight — make ahead if you can.
Pork Tinga (Tinga de Cerdo): substitute slow-cooked pork shoulder for chicken — even more traditional.
Tinga Tostadas: pile the tinga onto crispy fried tortillas with refried beans and lettuce instead of soft tacos.
Vegetarian Mushroom Tinga: substitute thick-sliced king oyster mushrooms for chicken.
Refrigerate up to 4 days. Freezes excellently for 3 months. Improves with age.
Tinga is associated with the central Mexican state of Puebla, where it has been a defining home dish for over 100 years. The combination of caramelised onion, chipotle and tomato is one of the foundational flavour profiles of Mexican home cooking. Pati Jinich has done extensive work documenting tinga and other Pueblan dishes for her PBS audience.
Tinga is a Mexican home dish in which shredded meat (most commonly chicken or pork) is simmered in a smoky chipotle-tomato sauce with caramelised onions. Originally from Puebla, it is now eaten across central Mexico as a weeknight comfort dish, served on tacos or tostadas.
Chipotles in adobo are smoke-dried jalapeños canned in a tangy tomato-vinegar sauce. They are a foundational ingredient of Mexican home cooking and not interchangeable with regular fresh or dried chilies. Sold in Latin grocers and increasingly major supermarkets.
Tinga specifically requires shredded meat (not whole pieces), caramelised onion (essential), and a smoky chipotle-tomato sauce. Other chipotle chicken dishes lack one or more of these. Tinga is also typically served on tostadas or in soft tacos, almost never as a plated main course.
Puebla — a colonial-era Mexican state — is the source of many of Mexico's most celebrated traditional dishes (mole poblano, chiles en nogada, tinga). Pati Jinich has documented Pueblan home cooking extensively in 'Pati's Mexican Table' and her cookbook 'Treasures of the Mexican Table.'
Yes — shred the meat from a rotisserie chicken and skip the poaching step. Use chicken broth (not water) when building the sauce. It cuts 20 minutes off the recipe and works beautifully.
Per serving (380g / 13.4 oz) · 4 servings total
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