Tortilla Soup

This tortilla soup is made with pantry ingredients, and it’s super quick too. If you have extra ingredients on hand, you can add them on as toppings!

I really love Mexican and Tex-Mex style soups. The flavors are bold and fun, and you can add so many tasty things.

For this pantry version of Tortilla Soup, the basics of the soup are all ingredients that you can find in your pantry. But then, you can add a bunch of different extra things if you have them.

Possible toppings include sliced olives and jarred jalapenos (both pantry items) and then things like fresh diced tomatoes, avocado, green onion, cilantro, and sour cream. Whatever you have, go ahead and add it!

As to the soup itself, there are two ingredients that really make it incredible. The first is possibly surprising. It’s salsa! Yes, there’s a whole cup of salsa in this soup. The salsa has some heat and some acidity. That means that when you add it to the soup, those flavors get spread right through it. It ends up tasting like a soup that’s been simmering for hours even though it only takes 15-ish minutes to make.

The second ingredient that really makes this soup delicious is not as surprising since it’s named in the title: Tortillas! What we mean here is crunchy tortilla chips. What you do is to crunch a few into a soup bowl before serving. Ladle the soup on top of those broken up chips. The soup will soften them and then the tortilla flavor will spread through the soup. Then, after ladling in the soup, you crunch a few more chips on top. These ones will stay crunchy and add texture. So good, right?

I hope you love this soup as much as I do!

Christine xo

Tortilla Soup

Contributor: Christine Pittman

This tortilla soup is made with pantry ingredients, and it’s super quick too. If you have extra ingredients on hand, you can add them on as toppings!

• Author: Christine Pittman
• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook Time: 15 minutes
• Total Time: 20 minutes
• Yield: 6 servings 1x
• Category: Entrée
• Method: Stovetop
• Cuisine: Mexican

Print Recipe

Ingredients

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• 4 cups low-sodium chicken stock
• 1–28oz. can petite diced tomatoes
• 1 cup medium-heat low-sodium chunky salsa
• 1 (15.25 oz.) can low-sodium black beans, drained
• 24 tortilla chips
• Optional Meat*
• Optional Toppings**

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Instructions

1. Put a large pot or Dutch oven on the stove over high heat. Pour in the chicken stock, diced tomatoes, and salsa. Cover and let it come to a boil. Reduce heat to low.
2. Add the black beans and optional meat, if using. Let everything heat through for 2 minutes.
3. To serve: Get out soup bowls and crunch 2 tortillas into each bowl. Ladle soup into the bowls on top of tortilla chips. Crunch another 2 tortillas onto the top of each. Garnish with optional toppings, if desired.

Notes

*If you’d like meat in this soup, you can add 2 cups of cubed or shredded cooked chicken, beef, or pork. You can also use 2 cups of cooked ground meat like ground beef or ground chicken. ¾ pound of cooked shrimp is lovely in there. Or you can add some cured meat like chopped smoked turkey lunchmeat, cubed ham, chopped cooked bacon, or chopped kielbasa or other fully-cooked sausage.

**If you have any of the following, add all or some of them as garnishes to the tops of the bowls of soup right before serving. Per bowl of soup add: 2 tablespoons of shredded cheddar or other cheese, 2 tablespoons diced tomatoes, 2 tablespoons chopped avocado, 1 tablespoon sliced black olives, 1 tablespoon chopped green onion, 1 teaspoon chopped cilantro, a dollop of sour cream, some jarred (drained) or fresh sliced jalapeno.