Chicken Taco Soup

Nothing is more soothing, delicious and classic than chicken soup. Chicken is a wonderfully versatile meat and is great paired with a variety of flavors. Try this lighter, healthier variation of the classic Taco Soup recipe.

Our very own homemade Chicken Taco Soup

We use chicken quarters in our soup. I can usually buy a 10-pound bag of chicken quarters (that’s the leg and thigh still attached to each other) for less than $10 in our local grocery store. I then seperate that bag into two or three large, gallon-sized, zip-lock bags and put those in the freezer. I use chicken quarters for all sorts of chicken dishes, like this wonderful soup.

Chicken Taco Soup

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs chicken quarters
• 1 small can green chilies
• 1 small yellow onion
• 2 cans stewed tomatoes
• 1 can Mexican-style stewed tomatoes
• 2 cans black beans
• 2 cans yellow hominy
• 1 packet of taco seasoning
• 1 packet ranch dressing mix
• Garlic powder
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil

* Optional toppings: fat free sour cream, black olives

Directions:

In a large pot, boil the chicken quarters in water with salt, pepper and garlic powder until cooked through. Remove the chicken from the broth and debone, discard bones and skin. Pour broth through a mesh strainer into a large bowl and set aside. Allowing the broth to cool completely will bring the fat to the top of the liquid. Gently scrape the fat from the top of the bowl and discard. This simple step keeps the soup light and lower in fat and calories.

Dice the onion and place in a large pot with a few tablespoons of olive oil and the green chilies. Allow onion to brown slightly. Add shredded chicken to the pot along with taco season and ranch dressing mix. Stir and then add the chicken broth back to the pot.

Open two cans of black beans and drain and rinse before adding to the pot. Open the hominy, drain and add to the pot. In a blender, combine the stewed tomatoes, blend well and add this to your soup.

Stir well to mix all the wonderful flavors. Cover and allow to simmer over low heat for 30 minutes. This soup is perfect topped with fat free sour cream (25 calories per serving: 2 tablespoons) and black olives. To make it a complete meal, you may want to pair it with a salad.

Calorie estimates:

First we’ll need to total up the calories for all the ingredients of the soup and then estimate how many servings are available per large pot of soup to find the calorie content for one bowl.

• Chicken – one cup cooked dark meat: 269. Five pounds boiled down, deboned and shredded usually gives me three cups of chicken meat, so we’ll do 269 x 3 = 807
• Chicken broth – one cup is around 40 calories. I’m fairly certain I had 10 cups of broth, so that’s 400 calories
• The stewed tomatoes generally have 70 calories per can = 210 calories
• Hominy: 115 per cup, and we’ll say there’s three in this pot of soup = 345 calories
• Two cans of black beans will give us about three cups which is 210 calories
• And finally, two tablespoons of olive oil = 240 calories

That’s a grand total of 2,212 calories. I like to round up, just in case I’m off somewhere – so we’ll say 2,500 calories per gigantic pot of soup. Our large pot usually gives us about 12 servings (almost two cups) of soup. Each serving is about 210 calories.

UPDATE:

When I started this blog in 2010, I had three children and a few pounds to lose.

Then I had THREE MORE CHILDREN. And I still have a few pounds to lose. It’s funny how life throws curve-balls at our curves.

I’d love for you to visit us at www.coersfamily.com to see how we’re managing our six children and our goals for a healthier lifestyle.