Leftover Magic - Chicken Tortilla Soup

Chicken Tortilla Soup

This is one of the few recipes I do that uses convenience foods.  It is also easily adapted to be a vegan recipe, just use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth and black beans instead of chicken.  This particular recipe is dairy free because we do not eat much dairy in our home due to my daughter and myself being allergic to cow milk and my husband being lactose intolerant.  Yes these are very different things.  Basically we can have goat cheese products and he can't.  But he is fine with yogurt made with cow milk most of the time and we are not.  So on with the recipe.

This is something I made that uses leftovers - hence a leftover magic recipe.   Homemade chicken broth, which I make from the bones from a chicken I cooked previously as well as veg scraps I kept in the freezer for just such an occasion.  I will discuss my broth making in another post soon, I promise.  You are getting this post today, because this is dinner today.

The other leftovers that are featured in this are the bits of chicken meat that were left from that chicken I mentioned cooking earlier as well as tortilla chips that had gone stale and no one was going to eat any other way.

I don't measure these things.  It is based on personal taste and what you have on hand.

I love this recipe not just because it uses up leftovers and is cheap, but because it is super easy for busy days.

Chicken or Vegetable Broth - enough to make this a very brothy soup
olive oil 2-3T
Garlic 1-2 cloves
Onion 1-2 depending on how big a pot you are making
peppers - Pablano and/ or Bell, but any mild pepper works how much depends on how big a pot you need to make
leftover chicken meat (or a can of drained and rinsed black beans)
Salsa - I use a half cup for a typical sauce pan size pot and a half jar when making a big pot of soup
Corn - canned or frozen
fresh oregano - optional
salt and pepper as needed to taste.
Tortilla chips

Chop the onion, pepper and garlic and saute in olive oil until tender then add everything but the tortillas and bring to a boil and allow to simmer for about 10-15 min.  Break the tortilla chips up and put them in the bottom of the bowls (you can add shredded cheese if you really have to).  Ladle soup over the chips.  And you have soup.