How to Make Mole Negro: Mexico’s Smokiest, Boldest Sauce

If Mexico had a national dish, mole would be the top contender. Across its many regions and countless family kitchens, the iconic thick, rich, complex sauce appears in endless forms, all with unique blends of flavors. There’s a bright and tangy mole rojo made with tomatoes; an herby mole verde made with tomatillos and pumpkin seeds; and a lesser-known mole blanco, which is light and nutty, just to name a few. Each version is personal. 

When I interview owners of Mexican restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area for local restaurant reviews, they often refuse to share any details of their families’ secret mole recipes. Ask a Mexican chef or home cook about their mole recipe, and chances are, they’ll smile, shrug, and politely decline to give away the family secret. That secrecy isn’t stubbornness—it’s reverence. Mole is more than just a sauce—it’s heritage in liquid form. People take great pride in their version of mole. That’s part of what makes enjoying mole so fun—you never know if you’re going to dig into a sauce made with fried galletas or tortilla ash.

Of all the many types, mole negro—a specialty of Oaxaca—is perhaps the most iconic and enigmatic. Its signature deep color and smoky depth come from a blend of charred ingredients and dried black chiles. The final sauce is rich, layered, and slightly sweet, with a flavor that’s hard to pinpoint and impossible to forget. You can’t pick out a single ingredient because oftentimes more than 30 of them are working in harmony, each one crucial to the final result.

It’s no secret that sauces are a staple of Mexican cuisine, and in many ways mole negro is the the top boss of them all. Recipes for mole negro often have intimidating ingredient lists, and my version below is no exception. Here I’ve created a no-holds-barred recipe for mole negro that’s luscious, thick, and irresistible when spooned over poached chicken or turkey. 

Yes, let’s acknowledge up front that the ingredient list rings in at more than 30 items, but as I’ll explain below, they all play an important part. And although it’s time-consuming, the steps are approachable and forgiving. Accidentally burn your tomatoes? No worries—it adds smokiness to the sauce. Mole too thick? Just drizzle in some more chicken stock. Since the recipe is a long project, it makes a large enough batch that it can be served for a large party or enjoyed for a family gathering while stashing a portion of it in the freezer.

A Brief History of Mole Negro

The word mole comes from mōlli, meaning sauce in Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica (Aztecs) and other Nahua peoples. When the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s, Indigenous communities in central and southern Mexico were already preparing complex sauces made from native ingredients, including pumpkin seeds, chiles, and tomatoes, often served over turkey or rabbit. These early moles were ground by hand on metates (stone slabs) and were deeply tied to ritual and communal cooking traditions.

After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, the pantry of mole began to expand. Colonists introduced ingredients such as almonds, cloves, cinnamon, sugar, and garlic—flavors brought from Europe, North Africa, and Asia via the transatlantic and Manila trade routes. By the 17th century, written records and convent cookbooks from Puebla and Oaxaca described dishes resembling mole, combining indigenous techniques with Old World ingredients.

Mole negro, in particular, emerged as a hallmark of Oaxacan cuisine over the centuries, rooted in the state’s rich biodiversity and regional chiles like the chilhuacle negro. While it’s difficult to trace the exact origin of mole negro to a single moment or cook, it likely evolved throughout the 17th to 19th centuries in Zapotec and Mixtec communities, incorporating both indigenous and colonial influences.

Today, mole negro remains a celebratory dish—served at weddings, religious holidays, and festivals like Día de los Muertos. It’s most commonly served over poached turkey or chicken. While there are many hallmark elements of mole negro, the sauce continues to evolve. Modern restaurants like Pujol in Mexico City age their mole for years by continuously adding fresh batches of mole (mole nuevo) to the existing, long-aged batch, while contemporary makers riff on mole negro’s flavors in everything from tamales to ice cream. It’s a living sauce, always tied to its past but never stuck in it.

The Logic of the Mole Negro Ingredient List

A general rule of recipe development is that you want to cut out unnecessary ingredients while preserving the essence of a dish. While it might seem like this rule goes out the window with this recipe, every ingredient here really does earn its place in the final dish. There’s no single master recipe for mole negro. Everyone uses their own blend of chiles, nuts, spices, and herbs to craft endless variations. This version calls for a carefully chosen blend of pasilla, ancho, mulato, guajillo, and morita chiles—a mixture that approximates the smoky-fruity depth of rare chilhuacle chiles traditionally used in Oaxaca. The blend produces a sauce with a slight touch of smoky heat, but the smoky flavor is not overpowering.

Toasted almonds, peanuts, pecans, and sesame seeds add layers of distinct nutty flair and body and ​​a soft savoriness that helps tame the sauce’s more bitter elements. A base of fried tortillas, bread, and ripe plantain lends thickness and subtle earthiness, while prunes and raisins echo the fruit-forward notes in the chiles. I also love adding hoja santa and avocado leaf for their herbal, licorice-like flavor, though they can be omitted if unavailable. These two leaves can be found in the spice section of most Mexican grocery stores. 

A tablet of Mexican chocolate, melted into the mole at the end, rounds out the bitterness and adds a silky sheen. This isn’t a place for milk chocolate—look for traditional brands like Moctezuma or Ibarra (available at most Mexican grocers or online) to get the right balance of cacao and sugar.

The Importance of Charring in Mole Negro

Unlike many sauces in which burnt bits are a problem, charring is a feature in mole negro, not a flaw. Much like the flame-kissed crust of a Neapolitan pizza or a plate of burnt brisket ends in Texas barbecue, charred ingredients give the mole negro its desired smoky flavor. 

Scorching the tomatoes, tomatillos, garlic, and onions builds the sauce’s signature smokiness and bitterness. It’s a technique used across Mexican cuisine—think recado negro from the Yucatán, where chiles are burned to ash, for one example. There are examples in other cuisines, too, such as the toasted spices used in Vietnamese pho. When done right, charring brings the savory complexity you might associate with the crispy edge of a good roast or grilled meats.

Charring comes from taking the step from Maillard reaction to pyrolysis—the chemical process in which organic matter is broken down into smaller molecules by heat, which creates complex flavors, and bitterness. The key is controlled combustion: You want blackened edges, not carbonized dust. There are many ways to char your ingredients for mole negro—they can be blasted with a kitchen blow torch, broiled, or set in a hot grill. I typically opt for broiling the ingredients on a baking sheet because it’s the easiest way to char multiple ingredients at once in a home kitchen. Don’t be afraid to go dark—just make sure to turn on your kitchen vent or pop open a window, and keep a close watch to prevent your food from fully carbonizing.

Technique Tips for Smoother, Better Mole Negro

To keep the texture smooth, it’s important to blend in stages and hydrate with stock as you go. Seeds and nuts can leave a gritty texture if not thoroughly puréed. An immersion blender at the end helps catch any stragglers. The mole should also be kept well hydrated with chicken stock at every step to help the ingredients blend and meld. It’s easier to reduce the mole a bit longer than scrape burned bits from the bottom of a pot. Taste frequently and balance the sauce with salt and sugar, adjusting based on how sweet your dried fruits and chocolate are.

How to Serve Mole Negro

With such a robust, bold sauce, the supporting ingredients should stay neutral. Poached chicken or turkey is the classic pairing—the mild poultry soaks up the sauce without competing with it. Enmoladas (mole-drenched tortillas rolled around shredded meat) and tamales stuffed with mole-coated fillings are also traditional and comforting. That said, there’s room to experiment. Spoon it over grilled vegetables, drizzle it into chilaquiles, or even stir it into barbecue sauce. Mole is a reflection of the cook—it should taste like you.

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