Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup by Ree (The Pioneer Woman Cooks!)

My sister Betsy is visiting, which means my sides hurt from laughing and I haven’t stopped cooking for three days. Bets and I love to cook and eat together, and you never know what direction we’re going to head. Some visits we do nothing but bake cookies. Other visits we cook up weird stir fry dishes and appetizers. Other visits we try to master bread.

This visit has been all about the slow cooker. I have to point out that Bets and I did not grow up in a slow cooker house. Our mom was a great cook and made hearty, homey food, but she just didn’t routinely use a slow cooker. So it’s fun to figure out these things together!

Here’s a soup we made Saturday. It’s my favorite kind of slow cooker recipe in that it requires no pre-cooking or sauteing or browning. You literally throw everything in, turn it on, then go live your life until it’s done.

Dice an onion. Alternately, have your kid sister dice an onion.

While your at it, dice—or have your kid sister dice—a red bell pepper…

And a yellow one, too!

Now, for the chicken: Throw chicken breasts right into the slowcooker. (We used four, but I adjusted the recipe amount to three. That would be plenty!)

Season the chicken with whatever you’d like: I sprinkled on chili powder…

Cumin, salt, and pepper.

(Pssst. You can also sprinkle on a packet of taco seasoning if you wanna be particularly sassy.)

Then everything else goes on! Onions…

Red bell pepper…

Yellow bell pepper…

A big can o’ tomatoes…(I only had whole, but diced would be even better.)

And a can of Rotel! It adds zip and zest and zeal.

Zeal? Never mind.

To add a little more liquid to the mix, pour in chicken broth…

Then add a chipotle (or two or three, depending on how tough you are) for heat.

Next, rinse a can of black beans and add them in. You can use pinto if you have ’em—even kidney beans would be fine!

Then add salt and pepper, a little tomato paste, and give it all a stir.

Lid goes on, and set it on high for 4 to 5 hours!

This is 5 hours later. I stirred it once or twice during the cooking just for kicks, but you don’t have to.

Stick two forks in and shred the chicken as much as you want. We shredded ours pretty fine (and it fell apart very easily) but you can just break it apart if you prefer the chicken to be in larger chunks.

Before you serve it up, a little lime is nice! Pardon the not-good quality of this photo. It was getting dark and it was cloudy and my camera was tired.

Zee finished soup!

Smelled divine and looked divine—we were ready to dig in.

But of course…tortilla soup needs fixins! Sour cream (yum)…

Avocado (yum)…

Grated cheese (always yum)…

Cilantro leaves (don’t leave these out; they make the whole soup!)…

And finally, crushed up tortilla chips. Normally, tortilla soup would have strips of corn tortilla, but the chips give it the same corn flavor and they’re fun.

Dinner is served!