Red Tortilla Soup

This is a modified version of Spicy Tortilla Soup by Becky Bradshaw of Bedford, Texas.

Ingredients

• 1 HEB rotisserie chicken (I like honey mesquite flavor)
• 1 large yellow (sweet) onion
• 1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 8-12 corn tortillas, coarsely chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped
• 2 cans (10 3/4 oz) tomato puree (or sauce)
• 2 quarts low sodium chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1-2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cayenne powder
• 2 bay leaves

Procedure

1. De-bone chicken, shred it up kinda with your hands, set aside.
2. Coarsely chop the corn tortillas. I usually just cut them into strips like 2 inches long and 3/4 inches wide. Set them aside.
3. Make a puree out of the onion by chopping it up and blending it with some of the chicken broth. Put it aside.
4. In a very large pot, sautee the garlic and cilantro in the vegetable oil. Try to go easy on the oil cuz it has a lot of fat.
5. Dump in all the chicken broth.
6. Dump in the onion puree.
7. Dump in the shredded chicken.
8. Dump in the chopped tortilla.
9. Dump in the tomato puree.
10. Dump in all the herbs and spices.
11. Bring to boil, reduce heat and let simmer until the tortilla pieces kind of break apart and thicken the soup.

This is an awesome recipe if you can get it to come out well... :) It tastes so damn good! The trick is getting the right amount of herbs/spices/tortilla for your tastes. It's easy to do that since it's a soup. Just start small and keep adding and tasting.

The really great thing about this recipe is that it's not bad for you at all. Check out the ingredients. It might be a little carby, but at least the fat is really low.