Chicken Tortilla Soup

This Mexican soup is a fairly recent incarnation. The soup is named for the fried corn tortilla strips used. It can usually be found on Mexican and Tex-Mex menus. Toppings for the soup include sour cream, avocado, cilantro and homemade tortilla chips.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:

note there are options listed for how spicy you want to make soup

• 3-4 cooked chicken breasts or deli rotisserie chicken works just fine (shred meat using 2 forks)
• 4-5 TB. olive oil divided
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 6 cups low salt chicken broth
• 1 can black beans rinsed and drained
• 2 jalapenos finely diced or 1-2 dried poblano chiles seeded 
• 1 TB. minced garlic or 2 cloves of garlic finely minced
• 1 small red onion diced
• 1 can (14.5) fire roasted tomatoes or 1 can diced tomatoes with garlic, oregano,basil
• 1 green and red pepper diced
• 2 TB. tomato paste
• 1-2 TB. chili powder
• 3/4 tsp. cumin
• 3/4 cup spicy V8 juice or Mr.&Mrs. T's Tomato Juice
• 1 bay leaf

Directions:

• Saute in 2 TB. olive oil onion, 1-2 TB. fresh cilantro and garlic
• Add tomato paste, tomato juice, can tomatoes, chili powder, cumin to onions and garlic
• Add all to blender and process 1-2 minutes till smooth
• In same fry pan saute in olive oil peppers
• In a soup pot add tomato mixture from blender, broth, jalapeno, bay leaf, beans, corn, peppers and shredded chicken
• Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered 20 minutes
• Discard bay leaf 
• To serve add fried corn tortilla chips or in produce section of store purchase flavored tortilla chips to save time-add dollop sour cream, avocado wedges or lime slices