Tava's Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe
Ahhh, yes. Nothing like the taste of a spicy and hearty Mexican soup on a cold night during a worldwide pandemic. Maybe that was a bit harsh. What I mean to say is, its nice to put a stamp of "normal" on at least one single moment during hard times. Sometimes a good meal just makes you feel like everything is right in the world. The perfect culmination of color, aroma, and taste makes you thankful for your little piece of heaven around the dinner table. That's the setting I strive to create for my kids everyday, now more than ever. I bet you can create the same for your family with this off the chain, bomb-dot-com, fanta-bulous soup. And this is the kind that doesn't go right through you in 30 minutes before you get hungry again. This soup keeps you satisfied for a good while.
We got a nice big box of produce from Imperfect Foods yesterday and I was excited to see how we could incorporate as much of it as possible into our evening meal. As you've probably noticed, we LOOOOOVE Mexican food. Tava and I came up with the idea to make Chicken Tortilla Soup. It was by far, the freshest and most delicious tortilla soup I have ever had. I still can't stop raving about it--but I will (momentarily) just to tell you how to make it.
We started with our chicken marinade first, mixing it all in a plastic bag for easy clean-up:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
The juice from 1/2 of a lime, but rolling out the lime before you use it helps you get all those juice pockets loose and ready to burst when you squeeze it. Watch how:
Add it into the marinade bag
Next, add 1 tsp each of pepper, cumin and salt
and a drop of Cilantro essential oil, which is optional
(but I love how it makes marinade taste even more refreshing)
Finally we added our chicken. We had 14oz from our Imperfect Foods order and I was a little concerned that it might not be enough for a soup supposedly serving 8, but it was!
Once we added that chicken breast to the bag, I tied it with a twist tie and Tava went to town working that marinade all up into the fibers of the meat.
Then we put that bag in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to let the flavors marry.
In the meantime, Tava grabbed the butter...
cut 2 Tbs from the block
and melted that little chunk of richness in the sauté pan.
While she did that, I was dicing up 2 jalapenos. Now if you like spicy tortilla soup, I suggest you add some of the jalapeno pepper seeds to your dish. If you just want a bit of a kick but not spicy heat, scoop out the seeds and throw them away. That's called "seeding". I don't know why they don't say to "DE-seed" the jalapeno, they just don't. So, I seeded and diced it. Watch the video clip to see how.
Once the butter was melted we added our jalapenos and yellow onion
and we let it sauté until it was barely tender.
Next we added fresh diced tomatoes.
We let that simmer in its own juices for a few minutes.
We used the other half of the lime in the soup to keep with our "fresh" theme.
Our recipe calls for chicken broth but it is more cost efficient, saves space and lasts longer to just buy chicken bouillon cubes, at least in my opinion. So that's what our family does.
We use 1 cube per cup of water. You can do the math by observing below. In hindsight, I wish I had done 3 addition cubes and 3 more cups of water so we could have had more liquid in our soup.
But I made the necessary adjustments in the recipe at the bottom.
These cubes take a while to dissolve so I speed up the process by heating it in the microwave about 5 minutes. The outcome will look like this:
When you add the chicken broth using this process, be careful because the bowl could still be hot if you didn't let it cool. And if you have little ones helping, you definitely want to play it safe.
Now to really flavor it up with some spice!
1 tsp each of pepper, salt, and oregano.
Then 2 tsp of cumin and chili powder.
Mix those spices in your sauté pan really well and enjoy the aroma rising to your nostrils (sniff, sniff...ahhhh).
By now, the chicken should be marinated well. We're going to preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, put our chicken breast on a foil lined baking sheet and bake that sucker for 20 minutes. Wow, it looks and smells good before it's even been cooked!
So now that the chicken is baking, what else can we add to this soup to bulk it up and make sure everyone leaves the dinner table full? A can of black beans will do--drained and rinsed of course.
Maybe a can of sweet corn.
We stir up that chunky goodness and let it simmer while we search for more things to add color...
AVOCADOS! I cut this in a diagonal pattern because it's easier while I'm cutting in the palm of my hand (which I actually tell my students NEVER to do) and because it just looks pretty!
Cutting it while it's still in the skin helps it not get too mushy on us because we want it to retain its firm cube shape. Plus...
...it makes it easy to scoop out, which we do with a regular spoon.
These avocado cubes are going in a bowl
set aside for a little bit later.
By now, the chicken is done and we're letting it cool while the juices settle on a cutting board.
When you cut chicken breast, it will slice up so much easier if you do it in a diagonal pattern against the grain of the meat fibers. That's how you get those nice and neat clean cuts.
Check out how yummy and juicy that looks!
Alright, into the pan with you.
Stir everything up a bit and it's looking good. But something seems to be missing...
A little Cilantro? Cute, but not enough green.
Oh yes--the avocado!
We throw that in and more of the cilantro--about 1/4 of the bundle (leaves only).
Yeah baby, THAT'S what we're going for! Can you say FIESTA💃🎉
Now, this soup is ready to be served. Another trick to help this soup stick to the ribs--tortilla chips.
You can add them to the top as a garnish but we like to put it in the bottom and let it soak up all the soup. It adds to the whole "Tortilla Soup" experience.
Ladle up some of that yummy Mexican goodness over those tortilla chips.
BOOM! Don't tell me that doesn't look picture worthy.
Maybe add some cheese and a little sprig of cilantro just to make it pretty.
Stash some extra tortilla chips on the side...
Or just top your soup with the tortilla chips. Whatever floats your boat, GOAT!
No more pictures, go try this recipe before you drool all over yourself because the taste of this soup was so amazing, 10x better than the pictures! I can't even begin to tell you what a difference it makes when you are able to use fresh produce in your cooking. You've got to try it to know what I mean. Check below for all ingredients, measurements and directions. Stay safe and healthy!
Tava's Chicken Tortilla Soup
Prep time: 20 minutes Cook time: 45 minutes Serves: 10
Marinade Ingredients:
- 2 chicken breasts
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/4 c olive or vegetable oil
- Juice from 1/2 of a lime
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp pepper
Soup Ingredients:
- 2 Tbs butter or olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 jalapenos, seeded and diced
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 3 tomatoes, diced
- Juice from 1/2 of a lime
- 32 oz chicken broth
- 3 cups of water
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp oregano
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp chili powder
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can corn, drained
- 1 avocado, diced
- 1/4 bundle of cilantro, chopped (leaves only)
Tortilla Chips
Shredded Cheese
Directions:
- Mix all marinade ingredients in a bag then refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Heat olive oil or butter in saute pan at medium high heat.
- Add garlic, diced jalapenos and yellow onion to pan and saute until just barely tender.
- Add diced tomatoes and the juice of half a lime. Let simmer for 5 minutes.
- Pour chicken broth and water in saute pan. Allow to come to a low boil, about 10 minutes.
- Add salt and the next six ingredients. Mix well.
- Bake chicken in oven for 20 minutes.
- During baking, add black beans and corn to soup.
- Turn heat to medium low and allow soup to simmer.
- Once chicken is done, let cool 5 minutes then dice into bite size pieces.
- Add chicken to soup.
- Add diced avocado and chopped cilantro
- Serve immediately over tortilla chips topped with cheese.
- Allow tortilla chips to soak up soup and soften. This adds to the "Tortilla Soup" experience.
Now that you've done it yourself, ENJOY and let your body thank you.
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