There is a Mexican restaurant near my office that has one of the best enchilada soups I have ever had. Last year, I started trying to find a recipe, really only so that I knew what the nutritional values were – sometimes tracking your food intake can be a tad difficult. Nothing that I was finding matched what I assumed was in this particular soup.

And then I struck gold on Pinterest.

Print Recipe

Enchilada Soup

Easy, warm, spicy, flexible soup made in a crockpt

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time4 hours hrs 30 minutes mins

Total Time4 hours hrs 45 minutes mins

Course: Soup

Cuisine: Mexican

Equipment

• Crockpot or slow cooker; stick blender

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp canola oil
• 1 large Spanish onion, diced yellow onion can be substituted here
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 32 oz low sodium chicken stock
• 6 small corn tortillas, diced
• 20 oz red enchilada sauce (2 10-oz cans)
• 8 oz tomato sauce
• 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 cup Colby jack cheese
• 1 Tbsp chicken soup base
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp chili powder medium strength
• ½ tsp black pepper
• ⅛-¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• 1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded

Garnish Examples

• Sour cream
• Salsa
• Shredded cheese
• Tortilla chips

Instructions

• Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat until it starts to shimmer. Sauté the onion until tender, about 10 minutes. Add garlic, and cook for another 2 minutes, until fragrant.
• In a slow cooker or crockpot, combine all ingredients except chicken and garnishes. Cook on high for 2 hours, or low for 4 hours.
• Using a stick blender, blend the soup until smooth – make sure to scrape a spoon around the sides and bottom of the crockpot! Add shredded chicken and cook on high for 30 minutes, until heated through. Serve with your selection of garnishes

Notes

You can do quite a bit to this particular recipe – increase or decrease the spices, add another cup of cheese, change the Colby jack cheese out for Mexican cheese, add a can or two of corn (after pureeing the soup, but before the chicken)…  Make it your own, but beware: this soup is addicting!  

(Can I just say that before I got on Pinterest, I thought a site like that was a crazy idea. It turns out that it can be a really great way to procrastinate. It was my entry into a lot of crafty things that I’ve been doing lately, so really, I have to admit that it has been more of a blessing, if I’m willing to accept the time curse.)

I tweaked the recipe to suite my tastes, which means I reduced the amount of spice, and over time have tweaked it further. It’s a really forgiving recipe, so feel free to change it to suit you!

I have been fully converted to this soup – I went to the restaurant that I mentioned a few weeks ago, and I realize that I now like my soup better. Which is probably the reason there has been a Tupperware container full of it in my fridge more often than not since the first of the year!