Updated: Oct 18, 2023 by Marc Matsumoto · 71 Comments

Red Mole Sauce (Conejo en Mole Rojo)

Learn how to make red mole poblano. This Mexican red mole sauce includes chilies, chocolate, and nuts making a rich mole rojo sauce for chicken, turkey or rabbit.

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Mole (MOH-lay) is a Mexican sauce that comes in about as many varieties as there are households in the country. Puebla and Oaxaca are two regions known for their moles with varieties including Verde (green), Negro (black), and Rojo (red). Mole Poblano from Puebla is perhaps the best known with its rusty red sauce enveloping cuts of turkey. Though opinions on this tend to vary, it's also considered to be Mexico's national dish. Despite the huge variation in preparations, one thing they have in common is that they all take a lot of time and loving care to make.

I made this dish as my submission for this month's Dinner and a Movie event. It's a monthly food event where a movie is chosen and participants use the movie as inspiration for creating a dish. Since this month's movie was Chocolat, it only seemed natural to make a dish featuring chocolate.

For those that haven't seen the movie, it's about a mother daughter pair that blow into a staid French village with the "west wind" during Lent. Like a breath of fresh air, their arrival brings new life to the town. Her knack for making sinfully delicious chocolates makes friends quickly, but also sends the town's conservative mayor on a crusade against them. About midway through the movie, Vianne throws a party for her landlady's birthday and invites most of the town. There's a dish served covered in a rich red sauce that makes the guests' eyes roll back in utter bliss.

The audience is left to guess what the dish is, but given the character's Latin American background I'd always imagined it was a rich velvety mole. If you've never tasted these flavours before, it truly is a throw-your-head-back-in-pleasure kind of experience. The sauce is redolent of roasted chilies, seeds and spices giving it an indescribably complex aroma. As it hits your tongue, it's spicy, savoury, sweet, and just a little bitter, with a familiar nutty richness coming from the chocolate.

Regular readers know I'm generally against sauces that cover up the flavors of a dish, but in this case, the sauce really IS the dish. I've heard many people dismiss mole as overly sweet and heavy-handed, and when it comes to canned sauces used in many restaurants, this is certainly true. A truly good mole however, is well balanced and has layers of flavors that aren't immediately apparent. Mole is the kind of food with such nuanced complexity, that it needs to be consumed in a quiet setting with your eyes closed to taste all the subtleties.

This one will take some time to make. It is a process to be experienced more than just a recipe. If this is your first time, give yourself 2-3 hours, which by mole standards is down-right quick. Spending the time to roast, toast, and brown each ingredient is absolutely worth it. Not just for the end result, but because each step fills the kitchen with a new aroma. These aromas crescendo as they come together, filling your home with a symphony of smells.

I used rabbit because it is very French. If you can't find it in your area, feel free to substitute chicken or turkey instead. You'll also have quite a bit of sauce left, which you can freeze and use later to braise other meats in.

I served this with homemade tortillas, but it would have been just as tasty with a crusty baguette. The mole was also accompanied by a sliced avocado, cilantro and lime wedges for a bit of contrast and freshness.

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