My New Favorite Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

A friend mentioned Chicken Tortilla Soup to me the other day and I’ve been craving it ever since. I found myself lost in the blog vortex the other night and saw THIS recipe for the soup from Kiwigirl Cooking and it sort of seemed like the universe was trying to tell me to make Chicken Tortilla Soup! I had most of the ingredients on hand but made a quick run to Dollar General (gotta love Dollar General) and picked up the rest. My point in telling you that is that even a non-grocery store like Dollar General is likely to have most of the things you need for this soup! I’ve made Chicken Tortilla Soup before, but this is, by far, the best I’ve ever made. YUM! It reminded me of the Jason’s Deli version and that is the best I’ve ever tasted. (Unfortunately, we don’t have a Jason’s Deli—I think the closest one is in Nashville which is roughly 400 miles away.)

These are the ingredients you will need:

Chicken, olive oil, onion, garlic, chili powder, cumin, diced tomatoes, chicken broth, condensed chicken broth, black beans, green chiles, whole kernel corn, cilantro, avocado (optional) and tortilla chips.

This is how I made it but if you want to see a great tutorial with step by step photos, go visit Kiwigirl Cooking:

I diced two chicken breasts and cooked them in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil in my stock pot. When they were cooked through, I took them out.

I added a few more teaspoons of oil to the pot and then added 1/4 cup of chopped onion—not real onions—the chopped onion that you find with the spices. If I had real onions, that’s what I would have used and I would have cooked them until they were translucent. Then I added 2 tsp. chili powder and 2 tsp. Cumin. I heated this for about a minute on low heat.

Then I added 1 regular size can of petite diced tomatoes and 1 jar of my mom’s canned tomatoes. If I didn’t have my mom’s tomatoes, I just would have used a can of crushed tomatoes.

Next is the broth. I used 4 1/2 cups—or whatever the canned/boxed equivalent of that is. (I don’t use canned/boxed broth. I buy powdered broth from the Amish store which is way cheaper and way richer than canned. I highly recommend it if you can find it!) Then just let this combo simmer for about 15 minutes.

Then I added a can of corn which I had drained. I also added several large spoonfuls of black beans (I didn’t add the whole can because I’m not a huge bean fan.) Then add a whole can of chopped green chiles. Throw your chicken back in and let it simmer for at least 10 more minutes. I went ahead and added cilantro—lots of cilantro.

And that’s it. I loved it. I will be eating it all week. Thank you Kiwigirl!