Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe for the Crock Pot, Stove Top, or InstaPot!
As promised I told you I would be bringing more recipes here to my website. I hope you are enjoying them. Have you made tortilla soup before? If you haven’t tried it yet, you have to try this tortilla soup recipe! I have made tortilla soup for years and it is always a big hit for my family, and now that the weather has grown cold, soups are a regular on my weekly menu. They are so popular in my house in fact, that my kids beg to take it for school lunch the next day! This means I have to make extra or ‘Ill be in big trouble.
Not to toot my own horn, but of all the tortilla soups I have tried, this one is by far my favorite. I have changed and adjusted my tortilla soup recipe until I had it exactly how I wanted it. The flavors are so well balanced in my opinion and it has just the right amount of spice and the beans and carrots in it make it a very hearty and so very comforting.
Now, I call this tortilla soup, because it demands a few tortilla chips on the top of it. But that is not all I use as toppings for this yummy chicken tortilla soup. I love a bit of sour cream, cheese, and a squeeze of lime! I could eat this all day long!
Soup is such a comforting meal and especially in the winter. I am always experimenting with my soups and rarely do I measure or keep track of what and how I am cooking. Out of all foods, soups have to be by far my favorite. I love love love them.
My husband always jokes that if he comes home to soup, there must have been a cloud in the sky threatening to rain. Well, he’s not far off. You can argue with a hot bowl of soup as it rains and snows outside. I mean, that is absolutely dreamy to me!
What you’ll love about this recipe:
How to make chicken tortilla soup
Before we get into the recipe and the how to’s I want to talk about the chicken. If you are a vegetarian, you can omit the chicken and still create a very hearty and filling soup, since it has black beans and pinto beans in it.
With that being said, I love it with chicken in it. It adds extra flavor to the soup and gives it a very hearty feel. Plus it is a great source of protein too!
So, lets talk about why I wanted this to be something that can easily translate from a crock pot, to a stove top, and an InstaPot. For me, I actually prefer to cook my soups, roasts, and stews in my enamel dutch oven. I don’t know why, but the flavors seem more intense and I just think it tastes better when it is cooked on a stove.
However, we all know that a crock pot and InstaPot are huge time savers so I wanted to include those in my recipe. I think another reason I cook on the stove is that I don’t think ahead far enough to make the crock pot worthwhile and I often simply forget that I have an InstaPot. I mean, its hard to break a habit!
So, before we get too far, lets get to the recipe!
Recipe for my Tortilla Soup for Stovetop, InstaPot, or Crock Pot
The Best Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 quarts chicken stock
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 3 carrots, peeled and diced
- 1 can black beans, drained
- 1 can pinto or white beans, drained
- 1 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1 tbsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 can crushed tomatoes
- 2 tsp salt (adjust if less salt is desired, add to taste)
- 1/2 yellow onion
- 4 garlic cloves minced
Optional: lime juice, shredded cheese, tortilla chips, sour cream as toppings
Instructions
- Begin by putting chicken stock, chicken breasts, cumin, chili pepper, onion, garlic, salt, and crushed tomatoes to the stockpot. Boil this on medium, for about an hour or until your chicken is done. I cook mine longer so that the chicken falls apart.
- Take the chicken out and chop or shred it using forks and put it back in the pot. Add the diced carrots and beans and cook another 20 minutes on low medium until the carrots are cooked through.
- Serve yourself up a bowl, add lime juice, sour cream, avocado, shredded cheddar cheese, and tortilla chips and eat it all up!
If you want to make this in your crock pot, add all the ingredients into the pot and cook it on low for 6 hours. Shred your chicken and you are done!
For your InstaPot, add all your ingredients except your beans and pressure cook it for 25 minutes. When it is done, add the beans and let them simmer in the soup while you shred the chicken. They just need to be heated through. I find that they break down too much when pressure cooked.
Nutrition
So, lets talk about the difference between cooking it on the stovetop, the crockpot, and the InstaPot. The InstaPot is all the rage these days, and while I do love using mine, I still prefer to cook my soups in a dutch oven on my stove. I think its is more of a hand on, visceral approach and that is why I love it.
Instant Pot chicken tortilla soup:
The Instapot cooks your soup so much faster and in fact it only cooks for 25 minutes in the Instapot. There are a few things to consider. Adding the beans into the soup at the beginning may result in beans that are broken down and falling apart. So, I like to stir them in after the soup is cooked, allowing them to heat through while I am shredding the chicken. You can keep your soup simmering after it cooks in the InstaPot which will allow the beans to cook all the way through.
Crock pot chicken tortilla soup:
Now, this is another very easy way to cook your soup hands off, but me….well I have a problem remembering to do it in the morning, especially since I work at home…there should be no reason…but there it is! All you need to do to cook your tortilla soup in the crock pot is to put all your ingredients in the crock pot and h=cook it on low for 4-6 hours. All you have to do is take the chicken out and shred it up. You can have it as shredded chicken or cut the chicken into chunks.
Whatever way you choose to make your tortilla soup, it is going to divine. It will be a comforting, hearty and flavorful soup, perfect on those cold days, but even great any time of the year. This is a dairy-free, gluten free meal as well! By adding toppings you can adjust it to things that you love.
Don’t forget to pin this for later!
You can freeze leftovers in the freezer to eat at a later date. Simply store in an airtight container.
Make sure you save this for later and share it with others! Its always kind when you share!
If you are interested in other recipes here on Twelve On Main why not try out these:
The Best Wheat Bread Recipe Ever
My Very Favorite Turmeric Milk Recipe
I hope you have a great day and hope you enjoy this Tortilla Soup recipe!
This sounds great! I am retired and I still love having a winter meal a week in the crock pot. We have a lot of “mystery soup:” Usually starts with a can of soup and leftovers are diced and thrown in. Never the same twice! Add a bit of cheese on top and go! I add pesto to mine (SO doesn’t like it) and I have Italian soup! When kids were little, it was usually a can of alphabet soup so they knew there was something “storebought” involved!.
Yumm????????????????