Spicy Chicken Soup

This Spicy Chicken Soup is a family favorite. Loaded with chicken, beans, and spices, it’s perfect for busy days—you can dump all the ingredients in your crockpot in the morning and come home to a delicious dinner after work. 

Update: This Spicy Chicken Soup was one of the first recipes I posted when I started my blog, and it’s still a family favorite a decade later. It was high time to make it again with some new photos and share it with new readers who may have missed it the first time around.

I love this meal because it is so easy to customize to your tastes and what you have on hand—change the amount of corn, spice things up by using tomatoes with diced green chilies, sub out black beans for pinto. If you’re using a smaller crock pot, use half the chicken.

I also love that this recipe makes a huge pot of soup and freezes very well. I like to freeze it in ziplock bags in 1 cup individual serving portions.

(Because I love it so much, I’ve also created an Instant Pot Spicy Chicken Soup recipe for my pressure cooking blog, Pressure Cooking Today. It’s great for those days you forget to start the soup in the morning!)

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Spicy Chicken Soup

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 6 hours

Additional Time 10 minutes

Total Time 6 hours 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 jar (16 ounce) mild chunky salsa
• 2 cans (14.5 ounces each) peeled and diced tomatoes
• 2 cans (14.5 ounces each) chicken broth
• 8 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (can be added frozen)
• 2 cans (16 ounces each) black beans, drained
• 1 onion, chopped, or 2 tablespoons dehydrated minced onion
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped, or 1 teaspoon dried minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 1 bag (15 ounce) frozen corn

Instructions

1. Pour salsa, tomatoes, and broth in a large crockpot. Add chicken breasts*, black beans*, chopped onion, minced garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, add parsley, and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.
2. About 20 minutes before serving, remove chicken breasts from soup and dice or shred.
3. About 5 to 10 minutes before serving, add the frozen corn and stir. Serve hot topped with shredded cheese, sour cream, avocados, and tortilla strips—and any other favorite toppings.

Notes

* This soup makes a big batch. For those of you with smaller crockpots, only add half the chicken and take out a can of beans.

The cold winter months are the perfect time for a steaming hot bowl of soup. This is my family’s favorite soup. My married daughter loves making it in the morning before heading out to work and coming home to the delicious spicy aroma. And my boys love it because it is hearty and loaded with lots of tender chicken.

My daughter asked me for more great recipes like this that she can make in the morning and come home to a healthy homemade meal all ready to eat, with lots of leftovers she can take with her for lunch.

Do you have a terrific, easy, make-ahead recipe that you’d like to share? Please leave me a comment with a link to your favorite recipe. If you’ll share them with me, I’ll share them with her, then I’ll blog about some of my new favorites!

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