Chicken Mole Tacos with Dona Maria Sauce

Chicken mole tacos take on a much different taste when simmered in the delicious and unexpected tastes of a great mole sauce. This one skillet recipe that starts with Dona Maria Sauce will have you craving mole even if you’ve never tried mole.

Recipe | What is Molé? | Making the Molé Sauce

What is Molé?

Molé sauce is a combination of many different things. It varies from town to town and family to family. You’ll find a variety of nuts, seeds, crackers, chiles and CHOCOLATE!

Easy chicken tacos taste wonderful with molé sauce with all these different, unique flavors combined.

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How do you say Mole?

Mole should technically be written as molé  with the accented “e”.  Mole is an Aztec word simply meaning sauce and is pronounced MOH-leh.

You had me at chocolate.

Wait. There’s Chocolate in Mole Sauce?

In Mexico, it’s not entirely uncommon to use chocolate in cooking. I balked at it at first but mom reminded me that barbecue sauce usually has sugar. Even ketchup has sugar. It’s just a little bit to take away any bitterness.

It’s not enough chocolate to make pudding no matter how much it may look like chocolate pudding. For your easy chicken tacos, I prefer to have something a little in between. You might say that it’s about the consistency of ketchup.

History of Mole Sauce

It’s said that mole was invented by a convent of nuns because they wanted something special for a visit from the archbishop. Be sure to read about it at America’s Test Kitchen.

It can take up to three days to make the traditional homemade mole sauce from scratch. Maybe mom and I may try that sometime, but for now, we are completely happy with the Dona Maria mole base. And, besides, they come in cute jars that make great juice glasses.

Is Mole Sauce Very Spicy?

This version of chicken mole isn’t spicy at all. I have recently discovered that I prefer a spicier mole. I like it to have just enough bite that you know it’s there, without it being overwhelming.

If you want a spicier sauce, try adding the same amount of chipotle sauce to replace the tomato paste. It’s made by San Marcos and is the perfect substitute. It’s a mixture of tomato with chipotle.

If you’re unable to find the cans of chipotle sauce, try adding the sauce from a can of chipotles in adobo. If it’s not enough sauce, you can add tomato paste to it to make it the equivalent in the recipe.

Whatever you do, don’t go wild with the sauce. You can always add more, but you can’t so easily remove it.

Dona Maria Mole

I really like adding the Dona Maria Mole sauce. It adds wonderful flavor but, for me, it’s just a base. I like to build on those flavors and make the mole sauce my own.

That’s not unusual. I think every family has their own unique and delicious flavors. Some people like it with peanut butter, some don’t. I think some people prefer it without chocolate too.

Try experimenting with the ingredients until you come up with your own family favorite.

How do you open the can of Dona Maria Mole?

Believe it or not, this is tricky. Once you know the trick, though, you’re all good.

You need a bottle opener. You don’t need the pointed can opener. Most hand held can openers will have a bottle opener on the other side. You may not have realized it was there. I didn’t. ha!

Don’t throw away the jar either. Once you clean it up, it makes the perfect juice glass.

Step by Step Instructions

The first thing you will want to do is make your chicken golden and crispy. It already looks delicious, right?

Once you’ve crisped up the chicken, you will cook some bell pepper and onion in the same skillet. Set it all aside to make the mole sauce. The bell pepper and onion will be used in the tacos.

Making the Mole Sauce

When you buy the Dona Maria Mole, you need to understand that it’s not ready. It’s a sauce base, not the actual sauce. You need to add more to it.

Each family is going to add different things in different amounts. It’s also a matter of preference about how thick the sauce should be. I’ve seen it as thin as taco sauce and also as thick as chocolate pudding.

Preparing the Dona Maria Paste

If you’ve never had mole, you will want to try it both ways and see how you like it.

When you first open the jar of Dona Maria mole sauce, use a fork to get it out of the jar and stir it well with the fork. The oils have separated and everything needs to be combined again.

You can see that it’s just a paste made of some spices and a little bit of liquid. It’s pretty chunky.

For this recipe, I’ve only used half the jar and I’ve saved the rest. Remember that it’s a flavor base, not the sauce itself.

Adding the Remaining Ingredients

The next steps are incorporating the other seasonings to finish the sauce and simmering the chicken in the sauce until done. It only takes about 15 minutes and wow, it smells wonderful!

This recipe makes a lot of mole sauce for simmering the chicken. Be sure to save it for something later. I ended up with about a quart remaining and I’ll be using it to make mole enchiladas.

Don’t be afraid to use corn tortillas. You really can make them soft and pliable. I’ve written more extensive details for softening corn tortillas.

What to Eat with Chicken Mole Tacos

Try some of these great recipes with your tacos so you will have an entire meal of Mexican food goodness.

• Spanish Rice with Tomatoes and Cilantro
• Mango Avocado and Jicama Salad
• Coca Cola Carnitas
• Instant Pot Vegan Bean Dip
• Chicken Tinga Tacos Durados

Be sure to browse all our Mexican food recipes for more ideas.

For an easy, trending birria tacos recipe, try these delicious Chicken Birria Tacos.

For another delicious chicken recipe with interesting flavor combinations like this one, try my Chicken Chasseur French Hunter’s Chicken recipe.

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