Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup | Creme De La Crumb

This quick and easy Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup is healthy, absolutely bursting with bold Mexican flavors, and 100 percent crave-able. This soup will become a must-make in your house!

These days, I want nothing but soup for every meal. Okay maybe not breakfast. (Okay maybe I’ve had reheated soup once or twice for breakfast…) How could I not? Just looking at these photos of this Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup makes me want to make more soup. Not only is it delicious, but it’s also nutritious. There is not an unhealthy ingredient in the whole batch. Plus, you’ll be mixing two different cooking methods: the grill and the stove top.

Although this requires a little (teeny) extra bit of time, it’s totally worth it. Putting grilled chicken and corn in the soup gives it a nice, smoky flavor and adds a bit of texture, making this dish one of the heartier soup recipes I have in my rotation.

If you’re a multitasker like myself, then you’ll love that you can be working on one component of this meal while cooking the other and vice-versa. If you’re not that into multi-tasking, you could very easily grill the chicken and corn the day before and add it to the soup until its warmed back up. If I were you, I might even suggest making double (or even triple) of the chicken and eating it for several days in everything — this soup, fajitas, salads, or quesadillas. You can thank me later.

If you do make it all at once, don’t worry, it really isn’t that time-consuming. You’ll need to mix together spices for seasoning the chicken, oil up the chicken, and then rub it down with the spice mixture. Grill on both sides for 5-8 minutes, cooking the corn (oiled, salted, and peppered) on the grill for the last 8 minutes that you’re grilling the chicken. You can take it all off the grill at the same time and set aside to cool while you put the other ingredients together in a stock pot.

While all the yummy components in the pot are coming together, you can dice up the cooled chicken and cut the corn off the kernel. Before you know it, it’s all ready to be combined and garnished with your favorite, complementary toppings.

IS IT HEALTHY TO EAT GRILLED CHICKEN?

Yes! Chicken is a very good protein source. It’s already low fat and low calorie and grilling it is a healthy way to cook it as you don’t need to add a lot of oils or fats to the chicken beforehand. And, if you grill up chicken without the skin, it’s even more healthy. (For those of you keeping track at home, that’s healthy on healthy on healthy.) However, if you leave the skin on, don’t fret — most of the fat on the skin is of the unsaturated variety (aka good fat). If you want the best of both worlds, grill the chicken with skin on for flavor, then remove it when you’re actually ready to eat it.

ARE THERE OTHER VEGETABLES YOU COULD ADD TO THIS SOUP?

There sure are! While I like the soup itself to be simpler, allowing room for piling on the toppings for additional nutrition and textures, you could also just as easily add more ingredients right to the soup. While I like to add corn, beans, jalapenos, and tomatoes, you could also add white or garbanzo beans, poblanos or sweet bell peppers, onions, green onions, zucchini, or yellow squash. Keep in mind if you add different peppers, you might want to eliminate the jalapenos, or you might not want to add two kinds of onions, etc. But really, this is your soup, so make it to suit your tastes.

WHAT OTHER TOPPINGS COULD YOU ADD TO THIS SOUP?

Just like you can add any veggies or other ingredients to the soup, you can also mix it up in terms of toppings. Consider saving the jalapenos for after the soup is cooked if someone in your family doesn’t like spicy. You can also garnish with cilantro, green onions, diced jicama, baked tortilla chips, plain Greek yogurt (instead of sour cream), salsa, hot sauce, or black olives.