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Tortilla Soup

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Tortilla Soup

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 2018-10-18, UPDATED: 2025-07-10 - Revised cooking time, added new option for cooking chicken pieces in the soup, and added nutrition info.

This is one of the most-requested meals around our house, and has stood up well in comparison with tortilla soups we’ve had at multiple local Mexican restaurants, and with the ones we’ve had in Mexico.

This can be made vegan by replacing the chicken broth with vegetable broth and omitting the shredded chicken, cheese and sour cream garnishes. The base soup is already dairy-free - just omit the cheese and sour cream garnishes. The entire thing is also gluten-free, though not on purpose…LOL!

When I make this, I usually buy a whole roasted chicken from the grocery store, pull all the meat off of it for garnishing the soup, and make my chicken broth myself with the carcass. This adds a bit to the process (not documented below), but gives me more control over the end product.

Alternatively, I use a high-quality, store-bought, low-sodium chicken broth and cook boneless, skinless chicken pieces in the soup to be shredded and added in after (instructions for that are in the notes below).

I’ve only ever made this soup in my Instant Pot, but you could certainly just slow-simmer this for 45 minutes instead and get great results.

Makes 6 Servings

Ingredients

Base Soup:

  • 1 bunch of cilantro (roughly chop stems for soup base, reserve leaves for garnish)

  • 1/2 to 1 canned chipotle chili (roughly chopped)

  • 1/2 to 1 jalapeno pepper (OPTIONAL - seeded and roughly chopped)

  • 1/2 medium onion (roughly chopped)

  • 4-6 cloves garlic (peeled and smashed)

  • 796ml can of diced tomatoes

  • 1L chicken broth or vegetable broth

  • Corn tortilla chips (white or red, about 50 grams)

  • Salt and pepper to taste

Garnishes (All Optional):

  • Lime wedges

  • Corn tortilla chips or strips

  • Avocado (cut into slices)

  • Cilantro leaves

  • Shredded lettuce

  • Sour cream

  • Shredded cheese

  • Pulled chicken meat (white and/or dark), cooked prawns or soy-free tofu

Method

  1. Saute the onion in 1 TBSP vegetable oil over medium-high heat (or use the Saute function in your Instant Pot if it has it) until just beginning to brown

  2. Add the cilantro stems, garlic cloves, chipotle chili and (OPTIONAL) jalapeno, and saute for a further couple of minutes. If doing this in a pan, transfer all of it to the Instant Pot.

  3. Add the can of diced tomatoes and their liquid to your Instant Pot, along with the chicken or vegetable broth. Stir to combine.

  4. Crush tortilla chips over the top surface - enough for a layer of chips to cover it (when I weighed this out, it was about 50 grams of chips), then stir them in.

  5. Set your Instant Pot to Manual (High if your model has different temps/pressure settings) for 5 minutes at pressure.

  6. Once the pressure cooking is complete, allow the pressure to release naturally for 5-10 minutes, then manually release the remaining pressure. Not sure if the initial natural release is really necessary, I’ve just always done it.

  7. Using an immersion blender, blend the entire soup base well (or transfer to a blender and process in batches) until a smooth consistency is achieved.

  8. Season with salt & pepper to taste, then serve with your choice of garnishes.

Nutritional Info

NOTE: This is for the base soup recipe ONLY, without garnishes or add-ins.

Totals for the Full Recipe

  • Calories: ~427.5 kcal

  • Protein: ~14.4 g (~57.6 kcal, ~13.5% of calories)

  • Fat: ~13.5 g (~121.5 kcal, ~28.4% of calories)

  • Carbohydrates: ~71.5 g

    • Fibre: ~9.4 g

    • Net Carbohydrates: ~62.1 g (~248.4 kcal, ~58.1% of calories)

  • Fist-Sized Portions of Non-Starchy Vegetables:

    • Cilantro stems + onion + jalapeño + garlic + tomatoes = ~950 g (9.5 fists total)

Per Serving (1/6 of total recipe)

  • Calories: ~71.25 kcal

  • Protein: ~2.4 g (~9.6 kcal, ~13.5% of calories)

    • Palm-size portions: ~0.1 palms

  • Fat: ~2.25 g (~20.25 kcal, ~28.4% of calories)

    • Thumb-size portions: ~0.15 thumbs

  • Carbohydrates: ~11.92 g

    • Fibre: ~1.56 g

      • Women <50: ~5.7-6.4% RDI

      • Men <50: ~4.7-5.2% RDI

      • Women >50: ~7.3% RDI

      • Men >50: ~5.7% RDI

    • Net Carbohydrates: ~10.36 g (~41.44 kcal, ~58.1% of calories)

      • Cupped-palm portions: ~0.2 palms

  • Fist-Sized Portions of Non-Starchy Vegetables:

    • Cilantro stems + onion + jalapeño + garlic + tomatoes = ~158 g (1.6 fists per serving)

This nutritional analysis is an estimate only, based on available knowledge regarding the nutritional content of the individual ingredients. Nutritional content of foods is HIGHLY variable, so you should always base your dietary intake on whether it meets your needs and progresses you towards your goals rather than any theoretical numbers on paper.

Notes And Options

  • I consider a squeeze of lime juice absolutely essential to the flavour of each bowl. The rest is entirely optional, but it really is best with a little bit of everything!

    • As an example, for a typical bowl, I would add about 100 grams (cooked weight) of shredded chicken, 1/8 of an avocado (sliced), 1 TBSP of fat-free sour cream, about 1/2 TBSP of shredded cheese, and (of course) a generous squeeze of lime juice.

    • This would add about 33.5 grams of protein, 9.25 grams of fat and 3 grams of net carbs, for a total of about 230 additional calories, bringing the total for a serving to about 301.25 calories, about 48% from protein, 34% from fat and 18% from carbohydrates. It also adds about 1 gram of fibre per serving.

    • This makes for a VERY well-balanced meal, with 1-1.5 palm-sized servings of protein, 1 thumb-sized portion of fat and about 1/2 a cupped palm of net carbohydrates. It’s also delicious and provides some long-lasting satiety.

  • As I mentioned in the intro, another option for a protein add-in and a little flavour in the soup itself is to cook 750 grams of boneless, skinless chicken thighs or chicken breasts (cut in halves) in the soup. This requires a couple of additional steps:

    • After step 2 in the instructions above, arrange the chicken pieces in a single layer in the Instant Pot on top of the onion, cilantro, garlic and chile mixture, then add the tomato, broth and tortilla chips on top.

    • After step 6 in the instructions above, remove the chicken pieces from the soup before pureeing in step 7 and set them aside in a separate dish.

    • Using two large forks, shred / pull apart the chicken pieces, and season to taste with salt and pepper (they’ll usually be pretty bland straight out of the pot). Use 1/6 of this shredded chicken per portion to add a BIG protein punch to each serving.