Mexican Name Finder
Soup or stewSpanishcentral Mexico

Mole de olla

"pot stew"

Say it

MOH·leh deh OH·yah

Where it comes from

mōlli (sauce, stew) + Spanish de olla (of the pot)

What Mole de olla means

Mole de olla is a Mexican soup or stew name of Spanish origin meaning "pot stew". It comes from mōlli (sauce, stew) + Spanish de olla (of the pot). It is pronounced MOH-leh deh OH-yah, and it is most associated with central Mexico.

Proof that mōlli meant any stew: this is a brothy beef and vegetable soup, not the thick sauce most people mean by mole.

This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: Pozole, menudo, birria, caldo. Mexican soup names are blunt and descriptive: menudo means "the small things", the offal that goes in it, and pozole comes from a Nahuatl word for foam, describing how the hominy blooms open as it cooks.

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Mole de olla means pot stew

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