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Chicken Tortilla Soup is one of most delicious one pot meals you’ll serve for family dinner and tastes even better with homemade broth.
This healthy and easy recipe is the best authentic tortilla soup recipe you’ll find!
Chicken Tortilla Soup is so freakin’ good. In fact, I was extra proud of this recipe because it was one of those flavorful and hearty meals I created on the fly with the ingredients I had to use up before they spoiled in my refrigerator.
How to make this Chicken Tortilla Soup:
- First step is to sauté onions and garlic in a pot on the stove. Chicken broth, tomatoes, corn and black beans are added to this mixture and heated through.
- Using a blender, process about half of the soup. Alternatively, you can use an immersion blender and partially blend the soup right in the pot.
- Add the shredded cooked chicken, cumin, salt and cilantro. Stir well and heat through.
- Serve with all the toppings! I love grated cheese, jalapeno, sour cream, and crushed tortilla strips.
Cooking tips for success:
- The secret to the most delicious soup, in my opinion, is to blend up half of the chunky ingredients. This is how you make it creamy. Once blended, you add them back into your soup. This method will make it so that you don’t just have a thin broth with lots of chunks. Instead, you will have a cohesive and flavorful chicken soup with the right amount of chunks.
- Another recommendation is to use really good meat as well as really good broth. You can definitely make this tortilla soup with pre-cooked chicken that you bought along with boxed broth. But, why not make your own and get a few extra meals out of the process while saving some money while you’re at it? I made a whole chicken in my crockpot. Then, I shredded all of the chicken. Some of the meat was used for this soup. The rest of the meat was used for chipotle chicken quesadillas, as well as for salads, and then I through the bones and skins right back in the crockpot along with all the flavors of the one spoon dry rub that I used, some water, carrots, celery and a bay leaf to make my own overnight crockpot chicken broth.
- You can definitely substitute in canned tomatoes or other sized fresh ones. I just happened to have a lot of cherry tomatoes so I dumped them in the soup. Once you blend them up, their skins and their juicy insides just add to the richness of the broth. Perfection.
If you love this soup, you should definitely try my taco soup. It is very similar in flavor, but is made with ground beef instead of chicken.
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Equipment
Ingredients
- oil I used bacon fat only because I just made some and didn’t want to wash the pot
- 1 medium onion finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes you can use other fresh tomatoes or canned, its what I had in my fridge
- 1 1/2 cups corn I used Trader Joe’s frozen roasted corn
- 15.5 ounce can black beans drained (I used Trader Joe’s Cuban Black Beans)
- 2 cups shredded chicken
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon salt
- large handful cilantro
- serve with chips sour cream, cheddar, diced jalapeno
Instructions
- Heat oil over medium heat in large pot or Dutch oven. Add onion and cook until tender and slightly golden brown, 4-5 minutes. Add garlic, stir, and cook for another minute.
- Add chicken broth, cherry tomatoes, corn, and black beans. Heat the mixture for about 5 minutes.
- Now here’s how you get a nice creamy soup: use a large spoon to transfer all of your cherry tomatoes to a blender. Then, use that spoon to scoop up about half of the beans, corn, and onions and add them to the blender too. You’ll want about 4 cups in the blender. Process what you transferred out of the pot until smooth and then pour all contents back into the pot with the remaining soup ingredients. Continue to cook until soup is almost at a boil.
- At this time, add your shredded chicken, cumin, salt, and cilantro. Stir until heated through and then serve.
- I always serve mine with some freshly grated white cheddar, diced jalapeno, a dollop of sour cream, and of course crushed tortilla chips on top. Store any remaining soup without any toppings in airtight container in the refrigerator.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
The tortillas were left out of the Chicken Tortilla soup. How many are needed and when do they go in?
Thanks!
The tortillas are just from the tortilla chips and they’re crushed and added to the top of the soup when serving.
Will this make well in the crockpot?
It should work great in a crockpot!
Incredibly good! One our favorites to make!
One of my favorite soups to order when out. I am super excited to try your Chicken Tortilla soup this weekend. Saving for later.
This was just the sort of tex-mex dish I was looking for for dinner last night! Was perfectly delicious and had a lovely kick to boot! Excited to have this again tonight!
Tortilla soup is one of my favorites so comforting and with a spicy kick, Now I am so hungry need a bowl
Chicken Tortilla Soup is one of my favorites! This recipe looks so easy and you’ve made the soup so healthy and easy. Thanks for sharing!
delicious soup.