I have been meaning to post my own version of Half Baked Harvest’s Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Soup for a very long time. This week, I finally made a batch of it and remembered to pay attention to the process!
This is one of my all-time favorite soups. It’s flavorful, full of fiber and protein, and has all the fun of chili (so many toppings!) without the heaviness.
Slow Cooker Chipotle Chicken and Black Bean Soup (inspired by Half Baked Harvest)
Servings:
Around 8-10, depending on what you consider a serving
Ingredients:
- 1 Spanish onion, diced
- 2 Poblano peppers, diced
- 1 jalapeno pepper, diced
- Approximately 4 cloves garlic, crushed, but measure with your heart
- 2-6 tablespoons canned chipotle and/or adobo sauce (see note 1)
- 2 14-oz cans fire roasted diced tomatoes (see note 2)
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 pound chicken (see note 2)
- 8 cups chicken stock (see note 4)
- Juice of two limes (see note 5)
- 1-2 15-oz cans of black beans, drained (see note 5)
- 1-2 cups of frozen corn (see note 5)
Optional Toppings:
- Cilantro
- Shredded cheddar cheese
- Sour cream
- Tortilla strips or chips
- Lime juice
- Avocado
Note 1: I love the smoky heat of chipotle peppers, but I am weird about textures and I cannot stomach the combo of skin, seeds, and slimy flesh. So I will buy a can of chipotles in adobo sauce, blend it up, and then freeze it in ice-cube trays. Once frozen, I put the cubes (which each hold roughly a tablespoon and a half of pureed chipotle/adobo) into a Ziploc bag in my freezer. They last forever this way, and I can drop them into soup and chili and taco meat and whatever else my heart desires. I usually add about 3 cubes to a batch of this soup.
Note 2: Due to the texture issues I mentioned in Note 1, I do not simply dump diced fire roasted tomatoes into my soup. Instead, I puree them in the blender, then strain the puree through a fine mesh sieve to capture any leftover seeds or tomato skin (hork). This time, I pressed the puree button on my blender three times, rather than the normal once, and I felt like the puree had FAR less debris left over after straining. Maybe next time I will puree it four times and it will be smooth enough that I can skip the straining step entirely.
Note 3: Although chicken thighs would be great in this recipe, I prefer white meat chicken. I have been partial, lately, to chicken tenders which are less expensive than whole breasts. I usually cook the chicken along with the soup, dumping it in frozen and then pulling it out once cooked to shred it, and returning it to the soup. Pre-cooked/shredded chicken would be fine in this too, and if you don’t like chicken, I think the soup is flavorful enough that you could leave it out entirely.
Note 4: The recipe this is based on calls for just four cups of stock, and that’s fine. My husband prefers this soup with less stock because he likes a nice chunky stew. I prefer a brothy soup, so I use two four-cup cartons of chicken stock and I loooooove it.
Note 5: I add the lime juice, black beans, and corn to the soup about a half hour before it’s done cooking. Because I love black beans and corn, and because I am receptive to my husband’s aforementioned preference for a chunky stew, I sometimes add more beans or corn. Just depends on how I’m feeling in the moment. You do you.
Instructions:
- Spray the bowl of your slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray, then add diced onion, poblanos, jalapeno, garlic, chipotle peppers/adobo, paprika, cumin, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine.
- Add chicken, broth, and tomatoes to the veggies and spices.
- Cover and cook on low for 5.5 to 6.5 hours or on high for 2.5 to 3.5 hours.
- Add black beans, corn, and lime juice to your slow cooker. Shred chicken if necessary and return to slow cooker. Cook on high for an additional 30 minutes.
- Ladle the soup into bowls and top with shredded cheese, sour cream, cilantro, tortilla strips, avocado, and more lime juice.
I was just writing my post for tomorrow and angrily typing about the avocado situation. Suzanne, it’s grim. I don’t know if it’s seasonal or what but I have not been able to have a good avocado in I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG. I’m feeling defeated!
I wonder if I could make this just entirely black bean. It would be easy to eliminate the chicken stock and use veg, but I wonder if I would have to add something in the place of chicken. Hmm. I will think on it!
I believe Half Baked Harvest has a meatless version with quinoa! I bet that would be delicious.
So sorry to hear about the avocado situation!
You don’t do fake meats, do you, Nicole? That’s what I’d do. In fact, I might. It looks good.
This sounds delicious! I haven’t had a chicken tortilla soup in ages. My husband can’t really have tortillas, so I like that that is optional. Also corn is pretty high on the glycemic load, so I could minimize that. Could cook the chicken separately so he and I could have it, and my vegetarian daughter could skip it. Life is complicated around here.
This soup is extremely flexible! You can leave the corn out entirely, if you prefer.
this sounds so good and I so appreciate your extensive notes. I chortled at your use of the word ‘Hork’. So funny.
I read Nicole’s comment above. I’m sure this soup could be made vegetarian! Quinoa would be good. There’s also chicken-style seitan. It does sound delicious! Oh and you and my daughter would get along well- she also has texture issues. We have to blend things up for her.
Aw, we’re crock pot twins! I have the exact same one. 🙂 This looks delish, and with the chipotle flavor, different enough that my husband would be willing to try it (he’s not a soup guy). Good idea to blend the peppers up and freeze them, I am going to try that!
What a detailed recipe, Suzanne! And your photos are luminous. I like your idea of blending and freezing the chipotle sauce.
While I’m not one for firm recipes, some elements of this post will wend their way into a future meal–so thank you!
Yummy. And pretty which I’ve come to realize enhances my enjoyment of any meal. As for avocados… no good ones around here anymore.
This looks AMAZING!! My friend Melanie is a huge fan of Half Baked Harvest and cooks from their recipes all the time. I feel like I might need to head over there and check it out myself!
This sounds so good! We rarely use our crockpot but I should pull it out and make this when I’m done with this stretch of travel! I love all of the ingredients. My husband has an aversion to tomato chunks so I usually use tomato sauce because I am too lazy to puree things generally speaking… but I would go to the effort of pureeing in this case since it calls for tomatoes with some pizazz! My husband has always been partial to chicken thighs and then he had to cut them up for a tikka masala dish and realized how much harder it is to cut up thighs since there is so much trimming involved, etc. So now we are probably forever team chicken breasts.
I love soup. I can have soup every day. Thanks for sharing this recipe.
This looks yum. Don’t own a crock pot. Not sure we have that here in Germany? At least I have never seen one either in stores or at someone’s place. Interesting.