Mole sauce without chocolate?

Question

Would you recommend a way to make mole sauce without chocolate? If so how? I'm diabetic and don't want a lot of sugar in my sauce.

Answer 1

Mole is often made with unsweetened chocolate or cocoa powder. No added sugars are involved. (There is a tiny amount of natural sugar in the cacao, about 1%.)

Chocolate is not absolutely necessary in mole. Mole verde generally does not contain chocolate; some recipes for mole rojo also leave it out. You could simply leave out the cocoa from a mole recipe, if you wish.

But you don't have to simply because you're diabetic. Seek a recipe which uses cocoa rather than Mexican chocolate; the Googles are full of such recipes.

Answer 2

I think you have three options.

1. Mole doesn't require chocolate. Find a recipe that doesn't have any. This recipe on Epicurious doesn't have chocolate, though they address that by noting that their inclusion of ancho chiles gives the chocolate flavor (I haven't tried any of these recipes, so don't take this as endorsement of them).

Ancho chiles — large, wrinkled, reddish-brown dried poblanos — add body and a chocolately flavor to many moles. They range from mild to hot. Guajillos are large, dark-red, dried chiles with a nutty flavor and not too much heat. Both varieties are available at www.kitchenmarket.com/. Four ounces will equal about eight to ten chiles.

2. Find a recipe that calls for a small amount of Mexican chocolate. This recipe from Mexican cooking enthusiast Rick Bayless calls for only 2 oz of chocolate in a very large batch. It calls for additional sugar but you can probably omit it if you're concerned about the sugar.

3. Alternately, find a recipe that uses cocoa powder instead of bar chocolate like this one from the Food Network. There's no sugar in cocoa powder.

There's no one recipe for mole so you should be able to adapt whatever recipe you have or find so that you get the flavors you like.