Chicken “Tortilla” Soup

December 6, 2016 No Comments

Category: Dinner, Healthy Eating
Tags: Chicken Torilla Soup, Easy meals, Healthy Eating, Healthy Meals, Week night meal

I love a good, hearty soup – especially in winter – and this Chicken “Tortilla” Soup is hands-down one of my favorite recipes. 

Sometimes soup can seem like a good side dish but not substantial enough for a meal, right? Well, this Chicken “Tortilla” Soup is amazing and includes all the elements of a full meal – between the chicken, beans, and corn, you’ll finish feeling satisfied. Errrr, well what about the tortilla? Well, no, I didn’t forget them… I intentionally left them out (you don’t need them to get the same flavor or the added calories!) and instead added in a few flax chips on top for added crunch. I also love this soup because I can spice it up (spicier the better for me!) or simply eliminate the spice for others and add my own chili flakes later on.

I made this batch for one of my closest friends who just had a baby because let’s face it – food is the last thing you want to worry about post-baby. Gifting soup is always my go-to because you can easily freeze and defrost whenever the time is right and it’s a crowd-pleaser.

Chicken “Tortilla” Soup

Ingredients

• 1 pound chicken breasts
• 4 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can kidney beans
• 1 packet of Trader Joe’s taco seasoning (note: it does have a kick to it!)
• 1 tablespoon garlic
• 1 small yellow onion (about 1 cup)
• 1 cup corn (I love the roasted corn from Trader Joes)
• 1 can green chilies
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• Flax chips  (optional
• **To add even more flavor, you can add in strips of corn tortillas if you’re not worried about the carbs. Slice up 3 tortillas into bite sized pieces.

Directions

There are two ways you can make this – on the stove with a dutch oven (my preference because I think it’s a bit more flavorful) or the crock pot (super simple solution when you have less time!). If you’re doing crock pot, just add all of the ingredients and heat on low for 6-7 hours.

For stove…

• Heat 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil and once hot, add onion and garlic. Saute for 4 minutes or so. Then, add green chilis.
• While onions/garlic/chilis are cooking, trim fat off of chicken and add HALF of the spices packet to chicken.
• Add chicken to the pot and simmer for 3 minutes on each side.
• Then, add in chicken broth, remaining spices, black and kidney beans, tomatoes, corn, tortilla strips and stir together. Bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat to low for 2 hours. Shred chicken and add it back to the pot and take off heat.
• I recommend not serving / eating it right away and simply leaving it on the stove to rest for 1-3 hours before reheating to serve. The soup will thicken when the heat is off which makes such a difference in the taste!
• Serve with flax seed chips on top

A healthy eating series focusing on simple, low carb/sugar dishes in 30 minutes or less. For more info on how MS affects my eating habits, click here.