Sunday Soupday: Santa Fe Chicken Soup

Ever since I requested my Sundays off of work, the end of the work week has evolved into a day of soup madness in my apartment. Soup has always been a hobby of mine, if that even is a real hobby, and I enjoy creating new kinds and experimenting with new ingredients. My favorite item in my kitchen is my steel soup pot I found one day for only $10 dollars at a thrift store. I don't know what it is about soup that I particularly enjoy, maybe it's the endless possibilities, the melting together of ingredients, the comfort, or the fact that every pot has the capability to become something completely unique and original. Some of my favorites have been sausage butternut squash, spicy crab corn chowder, and mushroom bisque. Today I made Santa Fe Chicken! 

I was craving a soup that had a Mexican style feel to it, but one that was also still home-style. The spices I used were not hot, but rather smoky with a little spice. I guess I would call it a chipotle flavor. I don't know. Who cares? It's yummy. Oh and creamy too. But anyways, on to the recipe! It's a huge pot of soup!

So to begin with, I chopped an onion (almost always my first step in any soup). I prefer white onions in almost all of my soups because they never overpower the color or flavor. Then I diced my raw chicken into tiny bite size pieces and seasoned them heavily with salt, pepper, and tex-mex seasoning. The tex-mex seasoning I use is made of dehydrated pepers, garlic, onion, and cumin and has a built in grinder. 

I just had to shove my raw chicken picture in here. Doesn't it look good all shiny and pink? I used chicken breast tenders, about a pound and a half. I think using pulled chicken from a whole roasted chicken would be best, but that is more of a time and effort thing and I had neither today. 

So in my soup pot, I melted some butter on medium-high heat and then added the onions. I sauteed those for a bit and then added my chicken. After getting a bit of color added to that, I added some chopped garlic to it as well. If you like spice, a jalapeno pepper would be good here as well. When the chicken was mostly cooked, I added 6 tablespoons of flour. This makes the mixture thick and kind of weird, but it has to cook for at least 5 minutes to get rid of icky raw flour taste.

After the flour is cooked, the next steps are easy and pretty much all at once. First, I slowly add about 10 cups of chicken broth/stock/whatever you like. Then I added a bay leaf, 2 cans of corn (white or sweet corn is best, in fact fresh corn from the cob would be even better) and 2 cans of black beans. I was DUMB and forgot to rinse the beans before adding them to the soup so my broth was colored slightly black because of it. I also added 2 cans of ro*tel diced tomatoes and chilies, with added cilantro and lime juice. After that I added 3 cups of milk, the more whole, the better. Finally the last ingredient I added was a bag of shredded mexican quesadilla cheese and a bag of shredded pepper jack cheese. After everything is stirred together, I get a quick taste and add seasoning (salt, pepper, tex-mex) as needed. Then I popped the lid on the pot and let that baby simmer for 45 minutes to an hour over low heat. 

Now the soup is ready to eat!! You can top it off with some tortilla chips or avocado if you like or just eat it how it is. Pretty successful soupday I would say!