Mexican Chicken Soup

I am a fan of anything that can be cooked in a crockpot. I work full time and it's great when I can come home after a long day and not have to cook a full meal.

This soup is a new favorite in the Tellier household. I got this recipe in an email from all recipes. I've adapted it a little bit. You can find the original recipe here.

I started this recipe with leftover salsa chicken I had cooked in the crock pot. What is salsa chicken? It's really easy....chicken and salsa. Yep, that's it. Clever right? I usually do four chicken breasts with about one small jar of salsa. I tend to buy different kinds of salsa to see if I can find the perfect one, so every time I make this it tastes a little different. In this photo I used half black bean and corn salsa and half mild pace picante. Cook 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low. After cooking, shred the chicken with a fork. Four chicken breasts makes enough for two pots of soup. So put half in the freezer for next time or use it to make chicken burritos or chicken taco salads. Both would be really yummy with this.

Mexican Chicken Soup
Ingredients:
salsa chicken
1 10oz bag of frozen corn
1 can of tomatoes
1 can enchilada sauce
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can chopped green chile peppers
1 can chicken broth
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups of water
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp cilantro
1 Tbsp lime juice
a few dashes of texas pete

Okay so basically all you do is dump everything into a crock pot, but I'll walk you through what I did.
Jamie has a aversion to onions so I have to be sure that the onions are small enough that he doesn't notice them....shhh don't tell :) So I use my electric chopper to mince the onions after I roughly chop them.

As you can see from the ingredients picture, I used a can of whole plum tomatoes. I got them on clearance at my grocery store. You can use whatever you like. If I had not had those, I probably would've used petite diced tomatoes and just dumped them in. Jamie is also not a huge fan of tomatoes so just mashing the whole tomatoes was out of the question. I went back to my handy chopper and did the tomatoes in there also.

That was the hard part. All of the other cans can just be dumped in as is. Measure out the spices and add those too. Don't let this picture deceive you, add the corn in now too. I realized that I didn't have any frozen corn or canned corn so I had to add mine in later after I made a grocery store run on my lunch break. I would recommend checking to be sure you have all of the ingredients before you start....Learn from my mistakes :)

Easy Peasy, right? Here's what it looks like after everything's all mixed together and has been cooking all day.

The original recipe gives instructions on how to make your own tortilla strips to add to this soup. That's too much trouble for me. I don't think it would be worth my time so I just cheat a little. I just crunched up these and put them on the counter for everyone to add as much as they wanted to their bowl. Tortilla chips are a good option too.

Do what works for you though. That's what I love about cooking. It's adaptable to each individual cook and family. I've eaten this soup with and without the taco shells and it's great either way. Tonight I left the chips out and added cheese and sour cream. Yummy!!