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
This was a very quick, easy and delicious recipe. I did not have jalapeno peppers, but I’m a wuss when it comes to spicy/hot. I also had to use dried cilantro, but I had everything else. My family and I loved it, and I will definitely be making this several times a month. Thank you
Easy and delicious. Everyone liked it, especially my daughter who doesn’t like the texture of beans. I love soup in the cold weather. Will be making this again.
The perfect soup on a wintery day! Big tropical flavour, pleasing to the eye,
and easy as can be to make! Saving this recipe, it’ll be a go-to for a quick, healthy meal.
A change from everyday basic chicken, beef, or vegetable soups! Only change made was I used a chicken breast purchased from store and baked in oven at 375 for 25 minutes; removed and let cool,then shredded. Oh so good!
Delicious recipe! My fiance has been talking about how much he loves Mexican tortilla soup for ages and I finally got a chance to make it for him. Your recipe is so delicious and so quick and easy to make. I followed the directions to a T. The fresh lime juice and cilantro give the soup so much bright flavor (reminding me of Thai soups).
Thank you!!
So glad you enjoyed it, Nettie!
Very tasty, was a big hit!
This soup was easy to make and unexpectedly flavorful! I’ve added it to my permanent list of favorite soups! We topped it with shredded cheese, avocado and sour cream and it was spectacular!
Excellent. Easy and delicious
Fantastic. I choose to leave off the canned tomatoes and extra chicken broth.
Delicious and quick to make
This one is a keeper, going to purge all my prior stored chicken tortilla recipes. By far the tastiest and also very easy! We changed it up a bit and added a little more heat with additional jalapeño and a dash more of cumin and chili powder. Topped with plain Greek yogurt and skipped the homemade tortilla chips, used premade baked flour .
Delicious and so easy. Cooking the chicken in the soup is simple. Some added cheese. Others added sour cream
Thank you for the recipe. I have made this several times. Today I altered with poblano pepper instead of jalapeño and added a can of hominy instead of corn. I paired it with jalapeño cornbread muffins .
Fantastic! Only change was 2 cans Rotel (because I didn’t have regular canned tomatoes) and about 6 cups chicken broth. Made in the Crock pot on low and shredded chicken at about 7 hours. Will make again!
Can this be made in a slow cooker?
Sure can Megan, we use this slow cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe. Enjoy!
My husband and I both loved it. I did add some cream cheese to make a creamy version. I also seared both sides of the chicken breasts on high heat before sauteeing the peppers and onions, the fond adds lots of flavor to the dish.
Half family are vegetarians so I omitted the chicken, doubled the beans and added sour cream and cheese melted on top. This was so good! So everyone could eat and love it
Fantastic recipe that was very easy to make(happened that I had all the ingredients on hand). Added only 1 t salt to boost flavor to the whole pot. Thanks!
Great recipe!! Made this soup for the very first time. The store I was at only had diced hot jalapeños and was a little too spicy. So I added 8oz cream cheese and then around 2c shredded Colby Jack cheese. It helped tame it down. Definitely a keeper. Thank you for the recipe ❤️
Second time making this recipe. This time after daughter and I got our Covid booster. Feeling a little yucky… this soup is what the doctor ordered!! We use lots of your recipes. Thank you so much!!!
So glad you’ve loved it. Hope you are both feeling better soon!
I made this recipe last night, and it was delicious!! I cut the recipe in half and used a rotisserie chicken, which was so easy and yielded excellent results! Quick and full of flavor — this is my newest go-to recipe for weeknights.