Southwest Chicken Soup | Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you tone down chicken tortilla soup? ›

Add Some Starches

The easiest way to tone down a spicy dish is to serve a smaller portion with plenty of rice, bread, potatoes, pasta, or plain starch to counter the heat. For soups and stews, raw and starchy vegetables like potatoes or carrots work well.

Stir chicken broth, black beans, diced tomatoes with green chile peppers, petite diced tomatoes, chicken, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper together in a large pot; bring to a simmer and cook until hot and flavors combine, about 20 minutes.

Yes, you can use flour to thicken chicken tortilla soup. To do so, create a slurry by combining equal parts flour and cold water. Whisk the slurry into the soup gradually, allowing it to simmer for a few minutes until the desired thickness is achieved.

Chicken tortilla soup actually is an authentic Mexican dish. The traditional soup is made with chicken broth, tomatoes, garlic, onion, chiles, and fried tortilla strips. There are also variations of the soup, like ones that include beans.

For a deeply flavorful chicken soup, get some boneless, skinless chicken thighs, season them, brown them in a skillet, then finish them in a 375 F oven. You can refrigerate them until you're ready to make the soup, then simply dice them up and add them to the soup at the very end.

The next time your dish tastes too spicy, try adding lemon, lime or orange juice, or any style of vinegar that suits the dish and your taste preferences. Remember, a little goes a long way, so taste as you go (it's always easier to add more than to backtrack after adding too much).

You turn on the heat, the pot heats up, and it's not long before all that whitish, greyish, or brownish foamy “scum” rises to the top of the pot just as it starts to simmer. What is that stuff, anyway? Broth scum is simply denatured congealed protein. It comes from the meat, not the bones.

It's flavored simply with onion, celery, carrots, and garlic, which makes it endlessly adaptable. The soup starts with a whole chicken. You're essentially making stock and soup at the same time, and the bones and skin from the whole chicken add depth of flavor to the soup as it simmers.

Let's start by saying that broth and bouillon are synonymous and that if the broth is served as a dish in itself, then it's soup (especially if other vegetables, meats, grains, and seasonings are added).

Just mix one tablespoon softened butter with one tablespoon all-purpose flour. Stir the paste into a warm soup to add a luxurious mouthfeel. As the butter melts it disperses the flour into the soup and thickens it. Try one of these methods next time you end up with a pot of soup that needs a little something extra.

How do you make broth more creamy? ›

Stir in Coconut Milk

You can easily add coconut milk to your broth to get that craveable creamy texture. Stir it in at the very end and let it simmer for a short period of time.

Occasionally, a soup recipe will call for beaten eggs as a thickening agent. Both whole eggs and yolks can be used. To avoid curdling the eggs, start by drizzling about ½ cup of the hot broth into the eggs, stirring vigorously while you pour. Then add the egg mixture to the soup and cook until thickened.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly the origin of tortilla soup, but it is generally attributed to Central Mexico and especially popular in Mexico City, where it was possibly born in the nearby state of Tlaxcala (which in Nahuatl means “land of the corn” or “place where tortillas abound”).

Chicken tortilla soup is low in calories but high in flavor. The amino acid cysteine, contained in the chicken in this powerful soup, loosens secretions, thinning out mucus and promoting coughing, which is needed to clear your nose and throat.

You can enjoy tortilla soup with many things, like tacos, burritos, and quesadillas. Mexican rice, chips with guacamole, roasted corn, black beans, and Mexican cornbread are also good choices.

The easiest way to tone down a dish that's too spicy is to add more ingredients to lessen the proportion of the spicy element. If it's a soup or stew, try adding more liquid. Add more vegetables, protein, or starches, too — whatever ingredient you have extra of.

Fresh herbs like parsley, basil, or thyme can help to mask the saltiness of soup, too. Add a small amount of fresh herbs to the soup and stir until well combined. Acidic ingredients like lemon juice, vinegar, or tomatoes can also help to reduce the saltiness of soup.

Try mixing in a spoonful of honey or sugar to cut the spice with sweetness. Sometimes, a sweet flavor can counteract spiciness and make your soup taste more balanced. Only add in a spoonful at a time and mix it into the broth.

You can add dairy: heavy cream, yogurt, cheese, etc. You can add something sweet: coconut milk, sugar, syrup, etc. You can introduce an acid: lemon juice, a little vinegar, tomato paste, etc. You could simply add more of the other ingredients that went before the spice, so the proportions are more in line.