Slow Carb Recipe: Mexican Chicken Soup

While I was doing my menu planning, I found a recipe for Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup from the Slow Carb Cookbook.  I don’t think I’ve ever actually had tortilla soup, because I would just think it’s got soggy tortillas or (even worse) soggy tortilla chips floating around in some soup.  If I’m anywhere that serves tortilla soup, I’m probably going to order Carne Asada or a burrito or nachos.  I’m not ordering some weird soggy soup.  (Just to be clear).  

However, I am looking for different slow carb recipes to try, so I thought I’d give this a shot.  Especially since there aren’t any soggy tortillas (chip-form or otherwise) to contend with.  Which makes the whole “tortilla soup” thing a bit of a misnomer.  Of course, since this is a non-tortilla version of tortilla soup, I wasn’t sure what else to call it, either.  That’s why this post is titled…

Slow Carb Recipe: Mexican Chicken Soup.

Ingredients:  

• 1 quart of homemade chicken broth, or that stuff from a can or carton if you don’t have any of the homemade version
• 1 can of refried beans
• 2 cans of Rotel tomatoes
• the meat you tore off your chicken carcass when you made chicken broth (or the meat from one rotisserie chicken, removed from the bone & chopped into bite-sized pieces)
• 1 can of black beans (the original recipe called for just ½ a can, but I didn’t have an upcoming use for the other half can, so I just threw them all in there.  I know – I’m such a rebel!)

Preparation:  

1. Whisk chicken broth with refried beans.  Ignore the fact that refried beans coming out of the can look like dog food.  Ignore the fact that whisking the chicken broth and the refried beans leaves little lumps.  They’ll disappear as you heat and stir. Dump them into your crock pot and set that baby to “high”.
2. Add rest of ingredients to the crock pot and stir together.
3. Cover and leave the crock pot on high until the soup gets all bubbly and steamy.  Then turn it down to medium or low or warm or whatever setting you’d normally use on your particular crock pot. Important: DO NOT leave any leftover soup in the crock pot on high for several hours after dinner.  It will not end well for you or for your crock pot.  If your husband professes to not know how to use a crock pot, don’t leave this step up to him.  That is all. 

 The Verdict: 

Hubby asked what I was cooking for dinner, and I let him know that it was chicken tortilla soup.  He looked in the crock pot and then turned back to me, “there aren’t any tortillas in there.”  

“No, of course not.  It’s slow carb chicken tortilla soup.” I’m not sure that really clarified things for him, though.  

While I enjoyed the flavor of this soup, I feel like I would like it more if I’d let it thicken up, instead of leaving the lid on the crock pot the whole time.  Of course, I’ve never had tortilla soup before, so maybe it’s supposed to be a thin soup?  You tell me.  No, seriously.  Please let me know in the comments so that I don’t decide to make some sort of thick tortilla stew for a dinner party and embarrass myself.  

Next time, I might try a version of Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Tortilla Soup, you know, because she’s a cooking goddess.  Also, because her endorsement of Rotel tomatoes made it possible for me to even try this recipe in the first place.  Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I probably wouldn’t have ever heard of such a thing if PW hadn’t told me about them.  Prior knowledge of the key ingredients is one of the things I look for in a recipe.  Anyway… I like that she spices the chicken and cooks it (although she allows that rotisserie is an option).  I like that she has real vegetables (in addition to canned) in her recipe.  Of course, she does have corn meal and tortillas in her recipe, which takes away the whole slow carb aspect.  I don’t really feel like that’s too much of an obstacle at this point though.  I’ve learned a bit about how to adjust recipes to make them more slow carb friendly.  Except for bread.  Haven’t figured that one out yet.