Friday 15 February 2013

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup

I'm still continuing my search to find my perfect Chicken Tortilla Soup - although I regularly crave the Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup featured Mid 2012.  Yum.

I am pretty sure that's the perfect one - but you never know right?
Besides that fact, it's the dead of Winter.  Soup is just one of the ways to beat the winter blues. 

And the countdown to Spring begins.

With soup!

And this recipe is super-easy.  The most labour intensive thing I had to do is chop an onion, open cans, and shred some chicken.

Speaking of shredding chicken.  I read a couple of different places that using your stand mixer makes shredding chicken quick, painless, and perfect.

So I tried it.  And I wasn't terribly impressed, although I may have overdid it.

I'll just shred by hand from now on.  (On Thursdays I tend to feel really lazy).

Another thing that makes this soup unique is the use of beer as one of the main liquid components.  A lot of the reviews I read said that the beer gave the soup a weird taste, so I used a dark Mexican beer.


In the bowl of a slow cooker, add the following:

Chili Beans.  Once again, I have no idea what that means so I just used Kidney Beans.


Corn.


Black Beans.  Rinsed and drained.


Tomato Sauce.


Diced tomatoes with chiles.


Chopped onion.


Beer.


Taco seasoning.


Stir everything together and add the chicken breasts, pressing them down until they're just covered.


Put the lid on and cook on low heat for 5 hours.

After 5 hours, take the chicken out and shred.


The stand mixer shred made a sludge out of the chicken.  Although it doesn't look too bad here - but the chicken literally disappeared when I added it back to the slow cooker.


Add the chicken back to the slow cooker and stir everything together.


Cover back up and cook for 2 more hours.  SEE?  See how the chicken is just DISINTEGRATED?  Yeah - I like chunks of chicken.

Surprisingly, with a completely different approach, this soup came out almost exactly like the Spicy Chicken Soup I made in October 2011.  Maybe better.  But - it's been quite some time so I maybe can't remember very well.


The beer didn't leave a weird taste as some of the other reviewers had stated, in fact I think it kind of added something a little special.


It's not the soup I've been looking for, but a warm tasty soup will always be welcome no matter what.

This is the Cane Girl - snuggly and warm despite the Winter!

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup

1 onion, chopped
1 (16 ounce) can chili beans  (I used kidney beans)
1 (15 ounce) can black beans
1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained  (I used frozen)
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle of beer
2 (10 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Shredded Cheddar cheese
Sour cream
Crushed tortilla chips
  1. In the bowl of a slow cooker, combine the onion, chili beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, beer, tomatoes with chilies. 
  2. Stir in the taco seasoning
  3. Gently press the chicken into the top of the bean mixture until just covered.
  4. Cover and cook on low for 5 hours.
  5. Remove chicken and when cool enough to handle, shred and return to slow cooker.
  6. Stir, cover, and cook on low for 2 hours.
  7. Serve with cheese, sour cream, tortilla strips if desired.
Source:  Allrecipes

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