Wine Pairings: Slow Cooker Chicken Mole and Zinfandel

Sweater weather means it’s time to cuddle up to cozy dishes — and wines. Warm up with rich, slow-cooked chicken mole and Zinfandel. This mole is incredibly easy to make, and its depth of flavor makes the ultimate match for a lush Zinfandel.

The Pairing: Why It Works
Zinfandel’s layered notes of warm spice, blackberry, vanilla, and mocha meld harmoniously with mole’s earthy red chile and chocolate flavors. The fruit in the Zinfandel also helps tame some of the spices in the dish. The sauce is quite rich, and has the potential to overpower a white wine.

chicken mole wine pairing

The Wine: Ridge Vineyards Three Valleys
For our pairing, we selected our favorite Zinfandel maker, Ridge Vineyards. Their critically-acclaimed wines have enough fruit to be approachable, but also the structure and complexity to be far more interesting than your typical, jammy Zinfandel. The Three Valleys is a blend of 78% Zinfandel, 13% Carignane, 8% Petite Sirah, and 3% Mataro. The Petit Sirah lends extra depth to the wine, while the Carignane adds brightness and acidity.

The Recipe
When we say Slow Cooker Chicken Mole is easy, we mean barely any cooking easy. And the results? So delicious, you’ll find yourself craving it later on. We adapted our recipe from AllRecipes’ Slow Cooker Chicken Mole. There’s one key change in our version: more chicken. We increased the quantity of chicken from 1.5 to 2 pounds. This gives you a heartier mole with more servings, with still an abundance of sauce to go around!

Ingredients:

  • 1 chopped onion
  • 1/2 cup raisins or chopped dates
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 chopped canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (not the whole can) << adobo sauce is key! Goya makes these and it’s available at Target, if you’re having trouble finding
  • 3 tbsp peanut butter
  • 2 14 oz cans crushed tomatoes
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 4 tsp chili powder
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 1/2 tsp coriander
  • a dash of nutmeg
  • 3 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 2 lb chicken

Preparation
Just load up a slow cooker with the onion, raisins, garlic, chipotle pepper, peanut butter,  crushed tomatoes, sugar, cinnamon, chili powder, cumin, coriander, nutmeg, cocoa powder, and chicken. Stir.

Turn it on for 6-9 hours (depending on how much you want the chicken to fall apart). Stir occasionally as needed.

Serve with rice. That’s IT!!

We hope you enjoy this Slow Cooker Chicken Mole and Zinfandel. Let us know what you think in the comments!

2 thoughts on “Wine Pairings: Slow Cooker Chicken Mole and Zinfandel”

  1. Ridge Three Valleys is my current *favorite* wine. It is so incredibly delicious and available at an amazing price point. Thank for you for the recipe of a solid pairing; I’m looking forward to trying it out!

    1. Thank you! Glad to find another Three Valleys fan, and hope you enjoy the pairing eventually!

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