Chipotle Mole Recipe: Is It Better in Tacos or a Bowl?

Taco Lab #11: I Tested 3 Ways to Serve My Chipotle Mole

I’ve been cooking this chipotle mole for a good few years now at Fiesta, my Mexican restaurant in Tbilisi. For all these years, I’ve served it straightforwardly: poached, shredded chicken in a corn tortilla, with a generous spoonful of mole on top.

It’s delicious. My guests enjoy it, and I’ve always been particularly pleased with this sauce. But recently I started wondering whether I was actually serving it in the best possible way.

After all, mole is a rather complex sauce, with so many ingredients bringing their own flavours and aromas. Is it enough to simply drizzle it over chicken? Should I be cooking the chicken with mole instead? And, perhaps an even more uncomfortable question for someone as obsessed with tacos as I am: does mole really need to be served in a taco?

So, for Taco Lab #11, I decided to test three different preparations: my original chicken mole taco, a juicier version where mole is incorporated into the shredded chicken, and finally a proper Mexican-style bowl with rice, refried beans and chipotle mole chicken.

I’ll share my chipotle mole recipe first, including some tips for cooks who, like me, are thousands of kilometres away from Mexico and occasionally have to improvise with their ingredients. Then we’ll get to the experiments.

My results, in brief: Mixing mole into juicy shredded chicken makes a better taco than simply spooning it over the meat. But my favourite dish overall was the chicken mole bowl with Mexican rice and refried beans. The taco was delicious, yet the bowl made the whole experience more satisfying.

And yes, I realise that concluding a Taco Lab with a bowl as the winner is a little suspicious.

What Is Chipotle Mole?

Before we start cooking, a little explanation of what we’re actually making.

Mole isn’t one particular Mexican sauce. It’s a whole family of sauces, with recipes varying enormously between regions, families and cooks. Many versions combine dried chillies, spices, nuts, seeds and other ingredients to create layers of flavour that you simply don’t get from an ordinary hot sauce.

And no, mole doesn’t always contain chocolate, although many of the popular versions do.

My chipotle mole is a fairly approachable, chipotle-forward version that I’ve developed and cooked over the years. I’m not suggesting it’s a definitive traditional mole poblano or a replacement for the wonderful regional moles of Mexico.

Here, I’m using three dried Mexican chillies, almonds, sesame and pumpkin seeds, raisins, spices and cocoa. Each ingredient has a little job to do.

Chipotle gives us that unmistakable smoky character and a little heat. Ancho brings deeper, slightly sweet and fruity notes. Pasilla adds another earthy dimension. Nuts and seeds give the sauce richness and body, whilst raisins and cocoa contribute some sweetness, bitterness and additional complexity.

If you’re unfamiliar with these Mexican chillies, I’ve explained their flavours, heat levels and applications in my guide to 12 essential Mexican chillies.

What I particularly enjoy about mole is that you can’t really point at one ingredient and say that’s what the whole sauce tastes like. They all work together, and the final flavour becomes something quite different.

It’s also one of those recipes where I genuinely enjoy the cooking process itself. Toasting the chillies, smelling the spices and nuts as they warm up, blending everything and watching the sauce become smooth and rich. There’s something very satisfying about it.

Anyway, let’s get cooking.

My Homemade Chipotle Mole Recipe

This recipe makes a rich, smoky mole sauce that works with chicken, tofu and other fairly mild proteins. You’re looking for a smooth, thick but pourable consistency, rather than something resembling either a thin salsa or a stiff paste.

Ingredients

Dried chillies

• 2 dried chipotle peppers
• 2 dried ancho peppers
• 2 dried pasilla peppers

Nuts, seeds and dried fruit

• ¼ cup almonds
• ¼ cup sesame seeds
• ¼ cup raisins
• 2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds

Aromatics and spices

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• ½ cup chopped onion
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• ¼ teaspoon ground coriander
• ¼ teaspoon dried oregano

For the sauce

• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• ¼ cup tomato paste
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• Salt, to taste

Preparation: Approximately 15–20 minutes, plus 20 minutes for soaking the chillies.

Cooking: Approximately 30 minutes, including toasting, sautéing and the final simmer.

Step 1. Prepare and toast the chillies

First, cut off the stems, open the dried chillies and remove the seeds.

Now comes the bit where I would really recommend being fully present at your stove. You want to toast the chillies and release their aromas, not burn them.

Heat a dry frying pan over medium-high heat and toast the chilli pieces briefly, turning them frequently. I usually keep the whole process under two minutes, but depending on the heat of your pan, it can be considerably quicker.

The moment they become aromatic and start changing colour slightly, you’re done.

Burnt chillies can bring a very unpleasant bitterness into the mole, and once that flavour gets into the sauce, there’s not much you can do about it.

Transfer the toasted chillies to a small bowl, pour over enough boiling water to submerge them and leave them for about 20 minutes to soften.

Step 2. Toast the nuts, seeds and spices

Now we’re going to work with the almonds, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds.

Toast them in a dry pan, preferably separately, moving them frequently until they’re becoming golden and aromatic.

Do the same briefly with the raisins, just enough to warm and slightly plump them, and then with your spices. Ground spices need only a short time in the warm pan.

Again, don’t get distracted by your phone at this point. Sesame seeds in particular can go from nicely toasted to a small culinary disaster rather quickly.

Transfer everything to your blender.

Step 3. Cook the aromatics and blend the mole

Heat the vegetable oil and gently sauté the chopped onion until soft. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Stir in the tomato paste and cook briefly to take away some of its raw character.

Transfer this mixture into your blender with the toasted nuts, seeds, raisins and spices.

Add the softened, drained chillies, cocoa powder and some of the broth. Blend until smooth, gradually adding more broth as needed.

I use a fairly powerful blender, as the nuts and seeds need to become part of the sauce rather than remaining little gritty pieces. I recommend looking at purchasing one if you want to be successful with all your sauces – my favourite blender right now is Ninja.

The consistency I’m looking for is thicker than gravy, but still pourable. If you find the sauce too thick, add a little extra stock.

Step 4. Simmer and let the flavours come together

Once blended, transfer the mole into a saucepan and cook on a very low heat for about 15–20 minutes, stirring frequently.

You may wonder why bother cooking it again when all the ingredients have already been toasted or sautéed.

For me, this final stage is important. It allows the ingredients to come together and marry each other, the spices to become better integrated and the whole sauce to taste more balanced.

Remember that the mole can thicken a little bit as it cooks. Just add a little broth if needed, and make sure it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan.

Taste and adjust the salt. And there you have it. My chipotle mole!

It’s smoky, nutty, gently sweet and nicely spiced, with cocoa bringing a little bitterness rather than turning it into something resembling a chocolate dessert. But it requires your constant attention at the stove. You can’t just chuck everything into a pot and let it be.

What If You Can’t Find Dried Mexican Chillies?

Now, a practical note for all my fellow cooks making Mexican food far from Mexico.

I know very well that dried chipotle, ancho and pasilla peppers aren’t always easy to source. Sometimes I simply run out of the whole chillies, but I still have their powdered versions in my pantry.

And yes, you can make this mole using powders.

My usual starting point for substitutions is:

These aren’t exact weight-for-weight replacements. Dried peppers come in different sizes, and powders vary in their concentration, freshness and flavour. But these are the proportions I generally use as a starting point, especially for chipotle.

If you’re substituting all six peppers in this recipe, that works out at roughly 2 teaspoons of chipotle powder and 3–4 teaspoons each of ancho and pasilla powder.

One important difference in preparation: If you’re using powders, you will be skipping the chilli soaking stage. Instead, gently bloom the powders in a little warm oil with the aromatics, taking great care not to scorch them, before adding the liquid ingredients.

I also like to give the finished mole a little longer on low heat when I’m using powders. It helps everything hydrate and come together properly.

Whole dried chillies still give me my favourite results, particularly in terms of texture and depth, but I certainly wouldn’t abandon a mole dinner simply because I’ve run out of them.

I’ve written more about these practical substitutions in my guide to cooking Mexican food far from Mexico.

The Taco Lab Experiment: 3 Ways to Serve Chipotle Mole

With my mole ready, I now wanted to figure out how to serve it best.

The main question was whether to keep the mole separate from the filling, incorporate it into the chicken, or give it a completely different format.

I used my familiar poached, shredded chicken as the base. If you’ve read my Chicken Tinga recipe and restaurant cooking tips, you’ll know I use poaching quite a lot at Fiesta because it’s practical, reasonably consistent and makes shredded chicken easy to prepare for service.

But there’s also one challenge: keeping that chicken juicy. And that became particularly relevant during this experiment.

Experiment #1: Chicken Tacos with Mole on Top

Method:Poach the chicken gently until fully cooked, shred it and arrange it on freshly made corn tortillas. Add approximately 20 ml of chipotle mole over each taco.

You can finish it with a little finely chopped onion and coriander, plus a squeeze of lime.

I wouldn’t add much more.

This mole already has plenty going on, so adding another couple of sauces, avocado crema, cheese and whatever else is lurking in your fridge would probably be counterproductive.

The result was deliciously simple. You could taste the mole very clearly, and nothing was distracting from its flavour.

But the chicken was a little on the dry side.

That is particularly noticeable when you’re using mostly breast meat. Even with perfectly cooked chicken, the fibres can feel slightly dry when the sauce is simply added on top.

So whilst I enjoyed the taco, it wasn’t quite as juicy and satisfying as I wanted.

My verdict: A very good, uncomplicated chicken mole taco, but the texture could be improved. I’d suggest using a combination of chicken breasts and thighs for a juicier result, or changing how the sauce and chicken are combined.

Which brings us to experiment number two.

Experiment #2: Juicy Shredded Chicken Mixed with Chipotle Mole

This time, I decided to change just one important element: how the chicken is prepared before serving.

Instead of arranging plain shredded chicken on the tortilla and adding mole on top, I mixed the shredded chicken with some additional stock first.

My starting proportion was about ½ cup (120 ml) of stock per kilogram of chicken.

Warm the chicken gently with the stock, adding it gradually so the meat becomes juicy without swimming in liquid.

Then incorporate the prepared mole just before serving, using enough to coat the shredded chicken generously.

Now you have chicken that is moist throughout, with the chipotle mole distributed between the fibres rather than sitting in a separate layer on top.

Serve it on a warm corn tortilla with just a little onion, coriander and lime.

And that’s a much better taco!

The mole flavour is still there, rich and wonderfully complex, but now you’re getting it in every bite. The extra stock also makes the chicken noticeably juicier.

What I particularly liked was that I hadn’t really changed the ingredients. It was simply a small adjustment in technique.

My verdict: Winner among the tacos.

If you’re preparing chicken mole tacos at home, this is the method I would recommend. Keep the chicken moist, let the mole coat the filling properly and resist the temptation to add too many toppings.

Oh, and please make sure your tortillas are good too. You can follow my guide to making proper corn tortillas at home.

Experiment #3: Chipotle Mole Chicken Bowl with Rice and Refried Beans

Now I started wondering whether the problem wasn’t the chicken preparation at all. Maybe I was simply trying to squeeze a sauce this rich and complex into the wrong format?

So I decided to make a proper bowl.

I arranged Mexican rice and refried beans, then added the juicy shredded chicken prepared exactly as in experiment number two, with the chipotle mole incorporated into the meat. Nothing particularly complicated here. Just a few components that already work beautifully in Mexican cooking. But the result genuinely surprised me: The bowl was more robust, more complex and much more satisfying as a complete dish.

The rice provided a relatively neutral base that could absorb some of those delicious mole flavours. The refried beans brought their own creamy, earthy character, and the chicken, now juicy and thoroughly coated in mole, tied everything together.

I also liked how the different ingredients provided little contrasts throughout the meal. One bite might have more chicken and mole, another more beans, another more rice.

With a taco, you’re relying on a few ingredients fitting into a relatively small tortilla. And that’s absolutely wonderful when the ingredients work together.

But in this case, I felt that giving the mole more room to shine made the whole meal better.

I use refried beans in so many of my recipes that I honestly think every Mexican home cook should know how to make them. Here’s my guide to cooking beans and making refried beans.

My verdict: Overall winner.

For me, this was the most satisfying way to enjoy my chipotle mole. It’s hearty, rich, deeply flavourful and makes a fantastic dinner.

And before anyone accuses me of abandoning tacos, don’t worry. I still have plenty of tortillas in my kitchen.

Taco Lab #11: The Results

Here’s how the three experiments with chipotle mole compared.

These are my own observations from cooking and tasting the three preparations, rather than a scientific test or a claim that everyone should prefer mole in a bowl.

But they taught me something useful about how I want to cook and serve this sauce.

My Taco Lab #11 Rule

Not everything delicious belongs in a taco. Sometimes the best way to enjoy an amazing Mexican sauce is to give it a different format.

I still love tacos and still enjoy my chicken mole taco, especially the improved version from experiment two.

But the point of my Taco Lab isn’t to prove that everything tastes better between two sides of a tortilla. It’s to find out what actually works.

And sometimes that means admitting that a bowl won.

Another Experiment Worth Trying: Chipotle Mole with Tofu

Before we finish, I almost forgot another combination that I’ve enjoyed previously: chipotle mole with tofu. And it was delicious.

I think mole is particularly well suited to fairly plain, mild plant-based proteins because they give the sauce a chance to provide much of the flavour.

Firm tofu is an obvious candidate, but you could also try seitan or other mild plant-based proteins that can hold their shape and absorb some of the sauce.

The important thing, based on what I’ve learned from these experiments, is to incorporate the mole into the protein rather than simply pouring it over the finished dish.

For tofu, I’d suggest pressing it first, cutting it into pieces and pan-frying until it develops some colour and texture. Then warm it gently with mole loosened with a little vegetable stock, so the sauce coats the pieces properly.

I would still make sure there’s some texture left in the tofu, as otherwise the whole combination can become too soft.

If you’ve followed my previous Taco Lab experiments with tofu, you’ll know that texture was one of my biggest learnings when testing tofu al pastor, tofu tinga and Baja-style tofu tacos.

And, of course, this mole itself can be entirely plant-based when made with vegetable broth.

For a vegan mole bowl, try it with tofu, rice and refried beans made without animal fat. I think that’s a very promising combination.

How to Store and Freeze Chipotle Mole

One more thing I love about this recipe is that the mole freezes really well. And considering how many different ingredients and preparation stages are involved, that is particularly welcome. I would absolutely recommend making a decent batch rather than cooking a tiny portion every time you fancy some mole. Let the finished sauce cool promptly, divide it into small airtight containers and freeze individual portions. That way, you can defrost only what you need rather than having to thaw a huge batch. Defrost it in the refrigerator, warm it gently on the stove and add a little stock if the sauce has become too thick. It might need a good stir to bring everything back together, but that’s easy enough. You can also refrigerate freshly made mole in an airtight container for around 3–4 days.

To me, it makes so much sense because you prepare something delicious in advance when you have time. And then suddenly, on a random Tuesday when you want to cook something a bit special, you already have most of the work done.

I think mole is particularly suited to those happy occasions when you have some friends coming over and want to impress them with something unusual.

My guests at Fiesta have often told me that mole feels like something quite special when they try it for the first time. The combination of smoky chillies, nuts, seeds, spices and cocoa isn’t always something people expect from a Mexican sauce.

And seeing someone discover a completely new flavour is one of the most enjoyable parts of cooking for others.

Frequently Asked Questions About Chipotle Mole

What does chipotle mole taste like?

My chipotle mole is smoky, nutty, mildly sweet and rich, with warming spices and a little bitterness from the cocoa. Chipotle provides the smoky character, while ancho and pasilla add depth and more complex dried-chilli flavours. The level of heat depends on the particular chillies you use.

What is the best way to serve chipotle mole?

From my three kitchen experiments, the most satisfying dish was a Mexican-style bowl combining juicy mole chicken, rice and refried beans. For tacos, I found that mixing mole into shredded chicken with a little extra stock worked better than simply spooning mole over the meat.

Can you use mole sauce for tacos?

Absolutely. Mole works very well with chicken tacos, particularly when the filling is moist and the mole is incorporated into the meat. My preferred serving is on a fresh corn tortilla with a little onion, coriander and lime. You don’t need lots of extra sauces or toppings.

Is chipotle mole the same as mole poblano?

No. Mole poblano is a well-known regional Mexican mole with its own ingredient combinations and preparation traditions. My recipe is a chipotle-forward mole inspired by Mexican mole techniques, using dried chillies, nuts, seeds, spices and cocoa.

Can I make mole without whole dried chillies?

Yes. I’ve made mole with powdered chillies when whole dried Mexican peppers weren’t available. As a starting point, I use one teaspoon of chipotle powder per dried chipotle and approximately 1½–2 teaspoons of ancho or pasilla powder per whole dried pepper. You’ll need to adjust to taste, as whole chillies and powders aren’t exact equivalents.

Can you make chipotle mole vegan?

Yes. The mole sauce itself can be vegan if you use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. You can then combine it with pan-fried tofu, mushrooms, seitan or other plant-based proteins. My advice is to coat the protein with the mole and warm them together, rather than just drizzle the sauce over everything.

Can you freeze homemade mole sauce?

Yes. Homemade mole freezes well. Store it in airtight portions and thaw it in the refrigerator when needed. Reheat gently, stir thoroughly and add a little water or stock to restore the consistency if necessary.

Final Thoughts: A Mole Worth Making More Than Once

I find making mole genuinely satisfying with my rather simple chipotle mole recipe. There’s something particularly enjoyable about starting with what looks like a slightly random collection of dried chillies, nuts, seeds, raisins and spices, and ending up with a beautifully rich and complex sauce.

But I think the most useful discovery from this Taco Lab wasn’t about the mole recipe itself. It was about how you serve it. For several years I was perfectly happy serving my mole over shredded chicken tacos at Fiesta. And there was nothing fundamentally wrong with that. Yet a small change in how I prepared the chicken made a much better taco, while a completely different serving format created what I thought was an even more enjoyable dish.

I suppose that’s why I keep experimenting with Mexican cooking. Even after years of running a restaurant and cooking hundreds of different tacos, there’s always something new to learn.

And that’s what my Taco Lab is all about.

If you’ve enjoyed this experiment, have a look at my Taco Craft guide, where I explain how I approach tortillas, fillings, salsas, texture and flavour combinations when building tacos at home.

And if you’d like to experiment with more Mexican sauces, my Salsa Magic guide is another good place to start.

Now, I’d really love to hear from you.

Have you ever cooked mole at home? Do you prefer it with chicken, vegetables or something entirely different?

And here’s my bigger question: Are there dishes you love in tacos but actually enjoy even more when served another way?

I’m asking this question and immediately think of Cochinita Pibil tamales for some reason! Let me know in the comments, and follow me for more Taco Lab experiments, recipes and practical lessons from my Mexican kitchen far from Mexico.

Happy cooking!

P.S. Here are my most used and loved tools and ingredients for joyful Mexican cooking:

Masa harina for tortillas: Masienda, Bob’s Red Mill, Maseca

Chillies for that true Mexican flavour: Chipotle, Ancho, Guajillo, Tajin seasoning

Tools to really enjoy your cooking: Tortilla Press + Comal, Ninja blender, Global knives.