Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Chicken Pinto Tortilla Soup

One day last week, I wanted to make my usual Chicken Tortilla Soup. There's no exact recipe for it, but it typically contains chicken (duh), taco seasoning, corn and of course crunchy tortilla strips.

I really didn't want to go to the grocery store. But sadly, I had no taco seasoning and no corn. The only chicken I had was the pre-cooked, pre-seasoned chicken strips. I like to keep them on hand to crank out some quick quesadillas or panini.

Anyway, the soup is typically pretty healthy, so I really wanted it for dinner.

My friend Michele over at My Italian Grandmother has been putting together 'pantry meals'; Meals made up of what you have on hand. So I headed to the pantry!

I knew I had the chicken.

I had no corn (how the heck did that happen??), but I found a can of hominy. I bought hominy for something else, and ended up with an extra can. I didn't really care for it the first time and meant to donate it to a food drive. I guess that didn't happen. But I needed a veggie and all I had on hand was frozen peas, and they just didn't seem right.

I had no taco seasoning and although I have a VERY well stocked spice cabinet, I was just too lazy to make taco seasoning, so I used chunky salsa instead.

Broth... open box of veggie broth in the fridge... check... oops, not quite enough, I'll fill it out with chicken broth.

I found a can of pinto beans in the pantry... those would work!

Plus of course cumin & epazote (my new fav Mexican herb)

And I always have all kinds of tortillas.

I found the fixins for a pretty nice soup!

I ended up with this!

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Chicken Pinto Tortilla Soup
3 C veggie broth
1 C chicken broth
6 oz chicken, cooked, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 can pinto bean, drained
1 can homini, drained
1 C your favorite chunky salsa
1 tsp dried epazote (or cilantro or oregano)
1 or 2 tsp cumin
Smokey Chipotle Tabasco, a few good shakes
4 corn tortillas
cooking spray
kosher salt

Preheat oven to 450F
Combine first 9 ingredients in a soup pot.
Simmer 20 minutes.
Cut tortillas into 1/2 in strips, spread out on a cookie sheet in a single layer.
Spray with cooking spray and sprinkle with kosher salt. Toss and rearrange back to a single layer.
Bake until lightly browned.
Sprinkle tortilla strips over bowls of soup.
Garnish with cilantro, cubes of avocado, or reduced fat shredded cheese.

Nutritional Info per 2 Cup Serving
Calories: 324.7
Fat: 3.5
Carbs: 53.3
Protein: 17.9

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I keep these on hand. Not necessarily this brand, just whatever is onsale.
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I cut them into cubes
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And tossed them into the stock pot with everything else and let it simmer.
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Meanwhile, I was making the tortilla strips.

Cut corn tortillas into strips and spread them in a single layer in a baking sheet.

Give them a little spray with cooking spray and a sprinkle of salt.
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Then into the oven until lightly browned.
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Sprinkle them on top of your soup!

Or use them for chips... or put them in a burger... this time, they were sprinkled on soup.

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And a little fresh cilantro.
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Avocado cubes would have been great... but I didn't have any!

But it was a light tasty soup that everyone really enjoyed. I really liked the hominy in the soup. It's like fluffy corn. I know know why I didn't care for it the first time!

The best part was that I didn't have to make a trip to the store!

girlichef's Tortilla Soup Challenge!
tortillasoupchallengegirlichef

13 comments:

Bob said...

Looks great, love the crispy tortilla strips. I've never heard of epazote, I'll have to look into that. I've been doing more SouthWest stuff and am looking to expand my herbage. :)

What's Cookin Chicago said...

Looks awesome as usual - definitely a bowl I'd love to dig into!

Gloria Chadwick said...

The soup looks wonderful. I love put-together pantry meals. :)

Heather S-G said...

I love hominy...and this soup looks like my kinda soup! Delish!

Shane T. Wingerd said...

Absolutely delicious looking/sounding as always... I need to learn how to use epazote... I have seen it, just really don't know what to do with it.. :) Now I know...

Lara said...

I love chicken tortilla soup and your recipe looks fabulous! I like the thought of adding healthy beans to it too.

Anonymous said...

What a great way to use up what you have in your pantry!

teresa said...

This looks wonderful! I do love a nice bowl of soup!

Dragon said...

I can almost taste it! Yum!

Tangled Noodle said...

This is beyond great - I was staring at my cans of pinto beans and hominy, trying to decide what I could do with them and then I see this recipe! Yay!! It sounds delicious.

test it comm said...

I really like soups like this. There are so many great flavours in them.

Heather S-G said...

Genius, Spryte! Why in the world have I never considered adding hominy to tortilla soup!? It SO fits! This is an awesome recipe, thanks so much for sharing it with me on my quest to find "THE" ultimate Tortilla Soup!! Hominy will definitely rear its head in one of my future endeavors! ;)
(...I didn't even remember this post when I read it...so glad you pulled it back out!!)

Patti T. said...

A couple of years ago I bought my son and daughter-in-law a southwest box of spices from Penzeys and epazote was in there, it said that it helped the "after effects" of beans.