Warm Your Heart & Soul Tortilla Soup

It’s a chilly, wet day here at our house. Cold days call for hot soup. Nothing warms your body and soul like a bowl of warm soup. I especially like some hot soup after I’ve been out for a cold run in the rain.

We live in Central Texas, and Tex-Mex food is very popular here. Our favorite soup to make at home on a cold day is tortilla soup. This tortilla soup is not only warm, but it is spicy as well! You can warm up your body, and wake up your taste buds at the same time!

This tortilla soup recipe started with my sister-in-law, and has been modified over the years as we added new ingredients. It’s a great “everything but the kitchen sink” kind of soup, because you can often toss in lots of different vegetables – whatever works for you. Hence, the many variation have evolved over the years into this current form.

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
6 cups water
2 T onion salt
2 T celery seed
2 T garlic powder
3 bay leaves

Cook these ingredients together until chicken is cooked completely – at least 45 minutes. This creates a fantastic chicken broth that is the base for the soup. Remove the chicken and cut into bit size pieces, removing all fat. Strain broth through a wire mesh sieve. Return strained broth and chicken to pot, and add the following:

3 cloves garlic
1 onion chopped
1 4-ouce can chopped green chili peppers
3 T olive oil
1 28-ounce can of stewed tomatoes (chopped)
1 10-ounce can Ro-Tel Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies
2 15-ounce cans black beans
2 zucchini, chopped
2 yellow squash, chopped
2 10 3/4-ounce tomato soup
1 chopped anaheim pepper
1 chopped polbano pepper
1 T cumin
1 T chili powder
1 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. Tobasco sauce
2 T Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I like to cut mine with kitchen shears)

Cook over a low flame until vegetables are tender to the touch, about 1 hour. This is a soup you can leave on the stove on low heat for a large part of the day. It makes your house smell scrumptious!

Variations:

• Keep the soup vegetarian by removing the chicken, and using a vegetable broth
• Keep it healthy by not adding cheese and fried tortilla strips (as you would see in restaurants, etc.)
• We like to eat it with blue corn chips and guacamole
• We also like to eat it with cornbread (not so healthy) or my legendary “Man-Hunting Biscuits” (definitely not healthy)
• We keep this in our refrigerator and eat soup for several days until it is all gone

Stay Connected With One Tough Mother Runner!

Click here to subscribe to my blog via email

Follow Me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TufMotherRunner

Join My Facebook Page: http://www.Facebook.com/OneToughMotherRunner

Be Inspired with Me on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/tufmotherrunner/

Follow Me on Instagram: http://web.stagram.com/n/onetoughmotherrunner/