Smoky Roasted Chicken Tortilla Soup

Savory day today!!! It got COLD all of the sudden here, and that always screams "TIME FOR SOUP!". The favorite soup, by far, in this house is Smoky Roasted Chicken Tortilla soup. I've adapted a recipe from Rachel Ray, it's really pretty close, just a couple small minor adjustments. I've made it for pot lucks a few times and it's always a big hit. It's pretty easy and not too expensive to make. I almost always have everything on hand except the bacon. Try it, you'll like it:)

Smoky Roasted Chicken Tortilla Soup

Supplies:
3 cups chicken stock (I use low sodium, low fat)
1 lb pulled roasted chicken
4 slices thick cut bacon
1 small onion chopped
4 cloves garlic
2 chipotles in adobo sauce plus spoonful of sauce
28 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
sour cream (I use light)
shredded cheese (I use 2% mexican blend or pepper jack)
tortilla chips (strips are easier to spoon, or this is great for scoops too)

First you need to decide about your preference on soup consistency. My house enjoys the flavor of onion and tomatoes, but we don't love biting into chunks of them in our soup (or chili). So I don't mess much with attention to uniform onion chopping because I blend the onion and tomatoes with an immersion blender about half way through this recipe anyway. If you like a chunky soup, then chop your onion finely and set aside.

Here's my "major" alteration to the original recipe....roasted chicken. Roasted chicken is a staple in this house. It's only $1 more than a raw whole chicken would be and the grocery store did all the time consuming flavoring and roasting for me, totally worth it. It doesn't take long to pull and shred it, I take away the skin and as much fat as I can, and I get about one pound of chicken that is perfect for so many things...soups, nachos, enchiladas, sandwiches, pizza, cresent roll wraps....there's really no limit to shredded chicken recipe creation. I made this soup the first time the way Rachel did, and it was a good soup, but the shredded roasted chicken is what made this soup a monthly dinner.

It's inexpensive, ready to eat, and offers the delicious all day comfort food we all crave.

Next the smoky part....prep the bacon! Stack the four slices of bacon and slice into 1/4 inch wide pieces. My next side step of the original recipe is here. The Rachel version has the bacon cooking in 1 tbsp of olive oil. I try to make this as slim as possible, and it's bacon, the fattest meat I cook with, it doesn't need that extra fat. I truly don't get the point of cooking fat in more fat, so I skip the olive oil. You'll have plenty of bacon fat to cook your onions in, seriously, save yourself the couple extra calories:)

Cook in 3 quart or larger soup pot until crispy. I didn't keep track, but I'd guess it took about 5-10 minutes to get crispy. You really have to keep an eye on it, the bacon will go from crisp to burnt in 2 seconds. I usually set up my chicken next to the pot so I can pull chicken while I keep an eye on the bacon. I spoon out the bacon when it's crisp and let it drain on paper towels while I put the rest of the soup together.

Now, you want a little fat to help start the onions and all that brown is perfectly delicious flavor that you'd never get out of box soup mixes. But you don't need all of it. I pour out all but about 1 teaspoon or so. Add your chopped onions and minced garlic (I use a garlic press) to the teaspoon of bacon fat reserved in your pot and cook about 5 minutes. They'll start soaking up all those yummy bacon gems off the bottom of the pan for you, how helpful!

Next add in the canned tomatoes. I stir these around and scrape up the bottom of the pan to make sure I got all that flavor in. If you're serving chunky soup style, you  need to finely chop your chipotle and then add them in. Since I like a smoother version, I just put the two full chipotles in and get out the immersion blender.

With the exception of the whole chipotles, this is what "chunky style" would resemble.

For my smoother version, I use the immersion blender and puree the onions, garlic, tomatoes, and chipotles.

Add the chicken stock. Now, I've had plans to make this soup and stop right here.

Top with bacon, sliced avocado and you'd have a tomato soup perfect by itself or even better with a BLT.....but my husband believes dinner includes substantial meat, so in goes the chicken and bacon and I let simmer about 10 minutes or so.

This makes about 6-8 servings. Top with your tortilla chips, shredded cheese, sour cream, etc. and enjoy!