Chicken simmered in a spicy broth loaded with vegetables makes for a tasty, low fat dinner. This recipe contains many of the same ingredients as a basic chicken soup recipe would have, including celery, carrot and yellow onion. Here's how to make it extraordinarily flavorful by adding cilantro, garlic, green onions and Mexican seasoning to this basic broth.
Mexican Style Chicken & Vegetable Soup
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 lbs chicken with skin
- 2 celery stalks, sliced
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 small yellow onion, sliced into thin rings
- 8 cups of water
- 1 chicken bouillon cube
- 14 ounce can diced tomato chunks, undrained
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Mexican seasoning
- 1/2 cup frozen corn
- 2 green onions, sliced
- 3 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
- salt & pepper to taste
Directions:
- Pour 8 cups of water into a large stock pot, and add chicken pieces, celery, onion and garlic.
- Cover the stock pot with a lid and bring ingredients to a boil over medium-high heat.
- Once boiling, reduce the heat, and simmer for 40-45 minutes, until chicken is done.
- Using tongs, remove chicken from the broth, and set aside in a bowl to cool.
- Remove any excess fat by skimming it off the top of the broth, and around the sides of the stock pot.
- With a wooden spoon, smash the cooked garlic cloves against the side of the pot, and stir the mashed garlic back into the soup.
- Add the undrained can of diced tomatoes, carrots, bouillon cube and Mexican seasoning.
- Cover the stock pot with a lid, and simmer for 30 minutes longer.
- Add the frozen corn, green onions and cilantro, and simmer 10 minutes more.
- While the soup is simmering, skin the chicken and remove all the bones.
- Shred the chicken into small bite sized pieces, and stir it into the soup.
- Season the soup with salt & pepper to taste.
To spice up the soup even further, add a dash of Srirachi sauce or hot sauce to each bowl. Garnish with a dollop of sour cream and a sprig of cilantro. Serve with tortilla chips on the side or place a few crispy tortilla strips on top of each serving of soup.
For heartier appetites, add a 1/4 cup of cooked white rice to each bowl of soup. To lower the fat even more in this recipe, decrease the amount of chicken to just under a pound. The only fat in this recipe comes from the chicken, all the other ingredients in this recipe are fat free.
Enjoy this spicy Mexican soup as an appetizer or main dish. This recipe yields approximately 6-8 servings.
 |
