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.
I’ve only ever made this soup in my Instant Pot, but you could certainly just slow-simmer this instead and get great results.
Ingredients (base soup)
1 bunch of cilantro (roughly chop stems for soup base, reserve leaves for garnish)
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)
Salt and pepper to taste
Ingredients (garnishes)
Lime wedges
Corn tortilla chips or strips
Avocado (cut into slices)
Cilantro leaves
Sour cream
Shredded cheese
Pulled chicken meat (white and/or dark)
Method
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 translucent
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.
Add the can of diced tomatoes and their liquid to your Instant Pot, along with the chicken or vegetable broth. Stir to combine.
Crush tortilla chips over the top surface - enough for a layer of chips to cover it, then stir them in.
Set your Instant Pot to Manual (High if your model has different temps/pressure settings) for 15 minutes at pressure.
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.
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.
Season with salt & pepper to taste, then serve with your choice of garnishes.
*NOTE: 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!