This chicken tortilla soup recipe simmers in one pot and is on the table in under 30 minutes for a delicious weeknight meal. Packed with chicken, veggies, and beans, it’s a meal the whole family will love.
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Holly’s Recipe Highlights
- One-Pot Meal: The chicken breasts simmer in the broth, making this soup both easy and flavorful.
- Skill Level: This beginner-friendly soup is a weeknight time and labor saver.
- Budget Tip: Add a cup or two of cooked rice to stretch the recipe further.
- Serving Suggestions: Chicken tortilla soup is great served with a toppings bar.
Ingredients for Chicken Tortilla Soup
- Chicken: No need to pre-cook the chicken; add it raw. If using leftover rotisserie chicken or grilled chicken, they can be added in the last 5 minutes to heat through.
- Vegetables: Canned tomatoes with chiles (Rotel) add extra flavor to this recipe; you can choose mild or spicy. The corn can be canned, fresh, or frozen.
- Black Beans: Canned black beans keep this recipe quick. Replace them with navy beans, pinto beans, or kidney beans.
- Tortilla Strips: Homemade tortilla strips are easy to make, but any crunchies like Fritos or tortilla chips will also work.
Toppings for Tortilla Soup
- Mix in dollops of sour cream, guacamole, or salsa for quick, flavorful upgrades.
- Top with shredded cheese, black olives, green onions, lime wedges, or cilantro.
How to Make Chicken Tortilla Soup
This soup comes together in one pot and just three easy steps!
- Cook Veggies:
Heat oil in a large pot and sauté chopped onion, garlic, and jalapeño until soft. Add chicken broth, diced tomatoes, black beans, corn, lime juice, cilantro, cumin, and chili powder. - Add Chicken:
Place chicken breasts in the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the chicken is cooked through. Remove the chicken, shred it, and stir it back into the soup. - Serve & Enjoy:
Ladle the soup into bowls and top with avocado, extra cilantro, and a squeeze of lime.
More Flavorful Comforting Soups
Did you enjoy this Chicken Tortilla Soup? Leave a comment and rating below.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 yellow onion chopped
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 jalapeño seeded and diced
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 14.5 ounces crushed tomatoes
- 1 (15 ounce) can canned black beans drained and rinsed
- 1 (10 ounce) can canned diced tomatoes with chilies with juices, such as Rotel
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts about 6 ounces each
- 1 cup corn kernels drained if canned
- 1 lime juiced
- ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 avocado sliced, for garnish
For the Tortilla Strips
- 6 small corn tortillas cut into ¼-inch strips
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- salt
Instructions
For the Tortilla Strips
- Cut the tortillas into ¼-inch strips. In a small pan, heat ¼ cup of vegetable oil over medium-high heat.
- Add the tortillas, in small batches to the oil and fry them until they are crisp, about 1 minute per side. Remove from the oil and drain on a paper towel. While warm, sprinkle with salt to taste.
For the Soup
- In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and jalapeño to the pot, and cook until the onion is softened about 3 to 4 minutes.
- Add in the chicken broth, black beans, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes with juices, corn, lime juice, cilantro, cumin, and chili powder. Stir to combine.
- Add the chicken breasts and bring the soup to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook uncovered for 20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.
- Remove the chicken from the pot and shred it with two forks. Add the shredded chicken back to the pot and simmer for an additional 3 minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
- Spoon soup into bowls and top with tortilla strips, lime wedges, and sliced avocado.
Video
Notes
Chicken: This recipe uses chicken breasts that are 6oz each. If your chicken is larger or smaller, adjust the cooking time as needed. The chicken is added to the soup raw and simmers in the soup.
Cooked chicken: To replace the chicken breasts with rotisserie chicken or cooked chicken, simmer the soup for a total of 25 minutes, adding 3 cups of shredded chicken during the last 5 minutes of cooking.
Tortilla Strips: Tortilla strips can be replaced with tortilla chips or they can be cooked in the air fryer or oven. Toss the strips with 1 ½ tablespoons of oil and salt. Cook in the air fryer at 350°F for 2-4 minutes or until crisp or bake at 350°F for 11-14 minutes. Check the strips early to ensure they don’t burn.
Spice: Reduce the spice by replacing jalapeno with green chiles.
Serving suggestion: Create a fun meal by serving it with a variety of toppings.
Leftovers: Keep leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 4 days and in the freezer for 4 months.
Leftovers & Freezing: Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Reheat on the stovetop or in the microwave. To freeze, cool completely, transfer it to a freezer-safe container or resealable plastic bag for up to 4 months.
Nutrition Information
Serving: 1.25cup | Calories: 278 | Carbohydrates: 27g | Protein: 18g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 36mg | Sodium: 671mg | Potassium: 714mg | Fiber: 6g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 290IU | Vitamin C: 19.9mg | Calcium: 69mg | Iron: 2.7mg
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Chicken, Main Course, Soup
Cuisine American, Mexican© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Originally Published: January 2019
Updated & Republished: October 2025
Holly, Holly, Holly…. when I tell you this is restaurant quality, I kid you not! Gurlll…. my whole household gave this 100 thumbs up! I had to make this twice in 3 days. The second time around I had to make a double batch! This is such a great dish for this cold snap the country is having rn. I think I’ll be putting this in weekly rotation for the remainder of the winter, and next time I’m tripling the recipe. The very only thing I did different, was to season my chicken breasts with my homemade taco seasoning and seared them before adding to everything else. OMG! This was so so good. I started following you on Pinterest, and can’t wait to see your other offerings. Thank you, Holly! Your friend and follower for life, Dee! p.s. Nordstrom’s tortilla soup ain’t got nothing on yours!!!
Aww thank you for the kind words, Dee! I’m so happy to hear this soup was such a hit ❤️
Super easy and super delicious. Chicken tortilla soup is one of our favorites and this was one of the best!
This was, in a word, amazing! I did veganize it by using seitan for the protein and subbing vegetable broth for the chicken broth, but otherwise used the ingredients listed. I was afraid that there weren’t enough seasonings by half, but the flavor was just spot on. My wife couldn’t stop raving about it! We’ll definitely be making this one again and again.
My family loved this soup. Very filling. I omitted the jalapeño due to sensitive stomach. It was still great without it. I will make this again.
Best chicken tortilla soup ever! So easy to make. This will be in rotation. Thank you so much are used Monterey Jack cheese.
great as is. next time I will add carrots and celery. i love the peppery flavor it brings
I followed the recipe exactly. While this soup wasn’t bad, it wasn’t as flavorful as I had hoped. I appreciated the ease of the recipe but likely will not make again.
Thanks for trying our recipe, Shelly!
This was absolutely delicious! It was also extremely easy to prepare. This will be in my permanent rotation of recipes!
Just tried the recipe tonight! With a few adjustments: I used Taco seasoning instead of chili, I used diced chicken instead of shredded and I added some celery.
Can i make this in a crock pot?
Hi Jackie, follow this Crock Pot version instead!
I’m a newbie cooker and I just bought an Instant Pot. Do you have instructions on how to adapt this to an Instant Pot? I absolutely love chicken tortilla soup! Thank you!
I have never tried adapting this recipe for the instant pot but another reader has and cooked it on the soup setting for 15 minutes. I hope that helps!
I’m not one to leave reviews but I have made this recipe many times over the past 2ish years. My husband, a picky eater, loves it night-of AND as leftovers. The only chances I made are omit the jalapeno due to flavor preference, and buy store bought tortilla strips.
Delicious!! Thank you
love this soup! it is easy to make and everyone loves it.
Absolutely delicious as written!
I just made this using a store bought rotisserie chicken. This soup is amazing.
This was a HUGE hit for my family! Delicious and easy!
I wanted something “soupy” but also with lots of protein. And wow… This was so so so easy to make and I cannot say enough how delicious it was. I cooked it for 30 mins before shredding the chicken and cooking another 10 mins. Oh, and I cheated and used store bought tortilla strips.
This soup was very good. Definitely will make more. Thank you
This soup is absolutely Wonderful!. My unbelievably picky daughter even loves it. No better endorsement can be had. I make it exactly as written. Bill H.