Chicken Tortilla Soup is the perfect easy weeknight dinner. Full of shredded chicken, corn, beans, and homemade tortilla strips, this soup is a meal in itself. It’s comforting, hearty, and filling.
What’s even better? Just like our Taco Soup and Beef Chili, this Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe comes together in one pot.
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Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup:
Chicken tortilla soup is like a taco in soup form. Its rich tomato and chicken broth pairs perfectly with chunky veggies, shredded chicken, beans and sweet corn.
You can sprinkle some tortilla strips right on top with a healthy handful of cheese, or pair the dish with soft Dinner Rolls.
Tips For Tortilla Soup:
- Use Leftover Chicken. Have a rotisserie chicken hanging out in your fridge? What about some leftover chicken breasts you don’t know what to do with? You can always use leftover chicken to make a fresh batch of Chicken Tortilla Soup.
- Bone Broth Makes All The Difference. Use low-sodium bone broth or easily make your own chicken broth.
- Adjust The Spice. Do you like it spicy? Add some extra jalapeños into the mix.
- Save Time With Canned Corn And Beans. Speed up the cooking time by using canned corn and beans.
- Cut Avocado Right Before Serving. To keep your avocado from browning, cut it right before you serve the soup
- Season To Taste. Depending on the tomatoes and broth you use, you may need to adjust the salt to taste at the end.
To Make Crispy Tortilla Strips:
- Pan Frying: Preheat a pan with 1/4 cup oil over medium-high heat. Cut 8 (6″) corn tortillas into thin strips and fry them in a couple of batches, adding more oil as needed. Remove from the pot and let drain on a paper-towel-lined plate.
- To Bake: Toss tortilla strips in a bowl with 2 Tbsp oil until well coated. Bake on a cookie sheet in a single layer at 350˚F for 15 minutes.
How To Make Chicken Tortilla Soup:
- Place a soup pot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add 1 Tbsp oil and sautee chopped onion, garlic, and jalapeno until tender.
- Add chicken breasts and remaining soup ingredients to the pot. Bring to a boil then simmer for 25 minutes.
- Remove the chicken to a bowl and shred it with 2 forks. Return chicken to the pot and simmer 5 minutes then add lime juice.
- Serve the soup with homemade tortilla strips, chopped avocado, fresh cilantro, and lime wedges.
Make-Ahead Tip: the broth gets more and more flavorful the longer it marinates in itself. Can you say delicious leftovers? Make a big batch of tortilla soup and eat it for lunch throughout the week.
Serving Chicken Tortilla Soup:
The only thing that makes Chicken Tortilla Soup taste even better are the toppings. These are our favorites:
- Sour cream
- Homemade tortilla strips
- Shredded cheddar cheese
- Cilantro
- Avocado
- Lime wedges
- Jalapeno, sliced or diced
Storing Leftover Soup:
- Refrigerator: Store your leftover soup without toppings in an airtight container in the fridge. It should stay fresh for 3-4 days.
- Freezer: You can also freeze your soup in an airtight container for up to two months. When you are ready to eat it, allow it to thaw in the fridge overnight. Reheat soup by bringing it to a boil in a saucepan.
More Soup Recipes You’ll Love:
- Beef Stew – with tender morsels of beef
- Pasta e Fagioli – easy Olive Garden copycat recipe.
- Loaded Potato Soup – creamy and you’ll love the toppings
- Chicken Noodle Soup – a family favorite
- Cabbage Soup – a soup to warm your soul in winter
- Minestrone Soup – a hearty, tomato-based soup that never gets old.
Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe
Chicken Tortilla Soup is the perfect, cold weather weeknight dinner. What’s even better? It comes together in one pot.
Ingredients
Servings: 6 servings
Chicken Tortilla Soup
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 jalapeno pepper , seeded and diced
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 lb chicken breasts, (2 medium)
- 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
- 32 oz chicken broth
- 14 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 14 oz can corn, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped, divided (reserve 1/4 of it for garnish)
- 1 lime, juiced
- 1 tsp salt, or to taste
Homemade Tortilla Strips
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 8 corn tortillas , (6" tortillas)
Toppings
- 1 large avocado, diced
- 1 lime, cut into wedges, to serve
Instructions
Tortilla Strips:
- Preheat a pan with 1/4 cup oil over medium-high heat. Cut tortillas into thin strips and fry them in batches in the hot oil until crisp. Remove from the pan and allow them to drain on a paper towel. Repeat with remaining tortilla strips, adding more oil as needed then set aside.
Chicken Tortilla Soup:
- Preheat a pot with oil over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion, garlic and chopped jalapeño and sauté until veggies soften.
- Add whole chicken breasts, corn, beans, chilli powder, cumin, crushed tomatoes, salt, ¼ cup of cilantro and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and let simmer for at least 25 minutes.
- Remove chicken from the pot and shred it using 2 forks. Add shredded chicken back to the soup and simmer another 5 minutes then add lime juice.
- Serve the soup with some tortilla strips, pieces of avocado, fresh cilantro and lime wedges.
Nutrition Per Serving
511kcal Calories54g Carbs30g Protein22g Fat
Nutrition Facts
Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe
Amount per Serving
Calories
511
% Daily Value*
Fat
22
g
34
%
Saturated Fat
3
g
19
%
Trans Fat
0.01
g
Polyunsaturated Fat
4
g
Monounsaturated Fat
13
g
Cholesterol
48
mg
16
%
Sodium
1083
mg
47
%
Potassium
1386
mg
40
%
Carbohydrates
54
g
18
%
Fiber
13
g
54
%
Sugar
8
g
9
%
Protein
30
g
60
%
Vitamin A
589
IU
12
%
Vitamin C
31
mg
38
%
Calcium
131
mg
13
%
Iron
5
mg
28
%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Filed Under
Hi! I’m Natasha Kravchuk, a New York Times bestselling cookbook author, recipe developer, food photographer, and writer. Here you’ll find delicious, reliable recipes made with simple ingredients, plus easy step-by-step photos and videos to help you cook confidently at home. 
This recipe is definitely a keeper and staying in rotation especially with the colder weather. The only adjustmented that I made was cooking my chicken in a crock pot first. I like the chicken better this way for me, It’s more tender and moist. I shredded the chicken and added it the soup. So delicious.
Thank you for sharing, Donis! I’m glad you enjoy this recipe!
If you’re a wimpy American like me, one jalapeño is far too spicy (or maybe my pepper was abnormally big). Go for a half jalapeño, I’ve made it this way and it’s much more tolerable. I also use canned white meat chicken, a cinch to shred. Great otherwise!
Hi JT! Thank you for the feedback. I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe. Some peppers are more spicy than others, seeding and deveining will help significantly.
Tried this last night and it was delicious. My husband absolutely loved it and asked for it to be our go-to chicken tortilla soup recipe. Made is just as written except cooked the chicken in the instant pot for ease and used home-made chicken broth. Thank you for the recipe!
You’re welcome, Becky! I’m happy to hear that your husband loved our recipe too, Thanks for sharing!
Very good – just incredibly annoying that it gives the calories in “one serving” but does not give a portion size for that serving. Makes it pointless.
Hi Ben! Sorry for the frustration. The nutrition facts are electronically generated by putting in the ingredients, so there isn’t a way to get that exact measurement at this time. This recipe serves 6 bowls. The best way is to evenly divide into 6 serving or use a food scale to weigh the soup as a whole and then divide that by 6. I hope that helps.
The recipe states that it makes 6 servings. So if you divide your pot of soup in six servings, voila!
Great recipe, very flavorful. For what it’s worth, I ended up simmering the soup for close to an hour to get it less “soupy” and a thicker consistency, which I really liked. (for anyone who wondered about how thick the soup is)
Don’t skimp on the lime! Makes the whole dish really pop. Also probably used more than a tsp of chili powder + cumin but hey.
We also browned the chicken and threw it in the oven to fully cook before shredding & re-adding, for what it’s worth.
Thank you, Chris for your good comments and review. I’m glad that you patiently waited to get the results that you wanted. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you, Chris for your good comments and review. I’m glad that you patiently waited to get the results that you wanted. Thank you for sharing that with us
Fantastic recipe! I don’t love beans so I used 1 zucchini and 3 carrots instead. My husband said it’s the best thing I’ve made and it tastes just like the tortilla soup and our favorite Mexican restaurant.
I’m so glad to hear that, RS! Thank you for the feedback.
I’m tired of being used other peoples gain. I came to this site for the recipe but need to weed through pages of garbage (e.g. ‘storing leftover soup’, ‘more soup recipes’, half-page pop-up ads, etc.) to see to the recipe. I feel more used than helped.
I will not be using this recipe and won’t be coming back to Natasha’s Kitchen.
Hi Wendy! I’m sorry for the frustration. I always recommend reading through the full blog post because I provide very helpful tips and answer commonly asked questions. If you’d like to skip this in the future, all you have to do is click on the “jump to recipe” shortcut at the very top of the page. We are always wanting to improve our user experience on our website but ads are how we can continue to provide free recipes to our viewers. Thank you for the feedback.
How rude! You are fortunate enough to be able to access recipes for FREE.
You should be thanking Natasha for posting!
Wow, you are a rude person. Ads have to be there so you can have the recipe for free. Scrolling down a few pages is not a big deal. What you see as garbage, might be helpful to someone else.
SO VERY RUUUUDE!!!! Most recipes on Google are this way. It clearly says, JUMP TO RECIPE! This was fantastic! My husband gave it 6 stars!
Wow, such a rude comment. If the recipe is not for you, then just move on. We have made this multiple times in our house and it is delicious every single time
My family really enjoyed this meal and it was so easy to make. Because we aren’t big on kick in our food, I omitted the jalapeño and it was still full of flavor. Rather than make my own tortilla strips, I crunched up some tortilla chips and sprinkled on the top.
Thank you so much for sharing that with me, Pat!
This is yet another great recipe…thank you Natasha! I know it would’ve been great just as it is but I made some additions as I can’t help myself with soups! I’ll share in case anyone wants to try any of them. I used 2 onions, doubled the spices, added one can of Rotel along with 8oz can of whole green chilies that I diced (they aren’t hot at all, but add great flavor). I also added 1/4C of red lentils… might sound random, but I always add to veggie or chicken chilis as they thicken it up and super healthy source of protein and fiber.
Thank you for sharing, Allie!
Allie,
Can you share how you added the lentils? How long do they need to cook?
Made this last night. It was delicious and my kids loved it!!
I’m so glad, Liz!
My husband and I LOVE this recipe!! We always double it and save the batches for our meal preps so that we can eat them throughout the week. I was surprised at how much you can taste the cilantro in the soup, but unfortunately the taste is gone after a day in the fridge. Love it!!
Hi Maddie, glad you love it and it’s a good idea to make ths recipe ahead too. Thanks for the review!
Hi! If I’m using rotisserie chicken, when do I had that to the pot? Thanks!
Hi Olivia! You can add it in step 3.
Hi Natasha, I’m a huge fan. I do have a question though. The recipe states 20 oz can of crushed tomatoes. Is this a typo? I cannot find a 20 oz can. :/
TIA
Hi Ju, it’s 20 oz can crushed tomatoes. You can buy whatever is availabe and reduce to 20 oz or add if they’re less.
I’ve made many of your recipes. This one is a favorite. So easy, but so delicious and satisfying! Thank you!
Thank you! I’m so glad that you’re enjoying my recipes.
This recipe has become a staple in my house! The first time I made it, I wasn’t sure it would have much flavor (the ingredient to spice ratio seemed too big!) but I was very pleasantly surprised when I tasted it. I’ve made it both with chicken in during the whole cook time, and with precooked chicken added at the end – it’s better with the chicken the way it’s written in the recipe but works great either way. It’s easy to make and tastes great as leftovers, too!
I’m so glad it’s being enjoyed. Thank you for the feedback.
Hi there. I don’t have the time to make the chicken broth today. I plan on using store bought chicken broth. Should I adjust the amount of broth?
Thank you!
Hi Marie, store bought should work fine in equal amounts, just add seasoning to taste depending on the amount of salt in the store bought broth.
Thank you for the quick response! Your recipe looks delicious.
Made as part of Christmas Eve dinner with tamales. It was a big hit! I will be making it again!
Great to hear that, Amy. Thank you!
Forgot to rate it. I need 50 characters. Here are some. And some more.
Thank you!
This recipe is super! I just finished making it for the second time. There will be many more. I used skinless, boneless thighs rather than breasts, cuz that’s how I roll. Of course, that’ll increase the calorie count. I also cut the broth in half to get something more stew than soup. I doubt it would change the taste much. I plan to experiment with adding veggies near the end to get a one-pot meal. Broccoli, spinach, kale, or zucchini should work.
Thank you for this great feedback! We’d love to know how it goes if you try those experiments.
This was sooooooo good, and so easy. I used canned tomato sauce, and kidney beans, it’s all i had. So good, will make it again and again.
So glad you loved it, Anna! Thank you for the feedback.
Delicious! I used diced tomatoes as I didn’t have crushed & it worked! I also made it in the instant pot. Definitely will be making it again!
I’m so glad that you enjoyed this recipe, Yvette!