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Mexican Chicken Soup Ole

Make this soup once and you’ll be hooked. While it may seem like a lot of ingredients - it’s super simple to put together. To begin, you throw most of the ingredients, including whole pieces of chicken in a pot and let them simmer while you prep the final touches. Don’t worry if you have never heard of tomatillos. While they’re a lovely authentic touch in a Mexican soup, we’ve included tomatoes and zesty lime juice producing an equally addictive soup guaranteed to be one of the healthiest you’ve ever made. You can eat your fill without a pang of guilt. This is also a calorie counters dream concoction. And you’ll go a long way to find a better use for those budget priced chicken legs with thighs attached. Also - earmark this soup for prime time tomato season.
Serves: 18
Prep Time: 25 min
Cook Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

2 lbs chicken pieces such as 5 chicken legs with thighs attached
8 cups chicken broth
2 large white or red onions, coarsely chopped
8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 large jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped
127 ml can chopped green chilies
1 tbsp ground cumin
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp each of dried leaf oregano and ground coriander
½ tsp ground cinnamon
4 cups chopped ripe tomatoes including seeds and juice
1 large green pepper
2 stalks celery
1 lime
1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro
sour cream and dried chili flakes (optional)

Food Safety

Before you start, wash all surfaces and your hands with soap and warm water, and remember to wash your hands, utensils and cutting boards after they touch raw meat or eggs. Avoid cross-contamination by using a different cutting board for your meat and other ingredients. Make sure you’re cooking to safe temperatures and chilling any leftovers within two hours. For more food safety tips, visit our Food Safety at Home Section.

Steps

  1. Pull skin from chicken and remove fat. Pour broth into a large saucepan that will hold about 18 cups (4.5 L) and set over medium heat. Prepare onion, garlic and jalapeno and add to broth as soon as they are chopped. Stir in entire contents of the can of green chilies and seasonings. Then submerge chicken in soup, bone-side up. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.

  2. Meanwhile prepare tomatoes. Coarsely chop green pepper and slice celery. When chicken has cooked 30 minutes, remove to a bowl. Stir tomatoes, green pepper, celery and juice of half a lime into the soup. Cover and simmer 20 minutes.

  3. Meanwhile, strip chicken from the bone and either pull apart, shred or cut into little pieces. Prepare cilantro. After the soup’s final 20 minutes of cooking, stir in chicken and add cilantro. Taste and add salt and more lime juice if needed. Serve soup and pass sour cream for spooning over top and slices of lime for squeezing in more juice if you like.

Helpful Tip

Tomatillo Touch. Also known as” little tomato” and “green tomato”, tomatillos are a key ingredient in some Mexican soups - adding an authentic “green tart” taste. You’ve probably seem them looking like small green tomatoes enclosed by a green paper like husk. If you want to use them here, substitute 4 tomatillos for half of the tomatoes. Remove the husks and since they can have a sticky coating wash well. Chop and add to the broth at the same time you add the chicken.

Nutrition Info

Per serving Amount
Calories95
Protein11 g
Fat3 g
Saturated Fat1 g
Carbohydrate7 g
Fibre1 g
Sugar4 g
Cholesterol38 mg
Sodium482 mg
Per serving % Daily Value
Potassium9
Calcium3
Iron9
Vitamin A6
Vitamin C28
Vitamin B615
Vitamin B126
Folate9
Zinc13

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