Chicken Poblano Soup

Prep: 20 minutes

Cook: 1 hour 40 minutes

Total: 2 hours

Servings: 6 Servings

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter

• 2 celery stalks, diced

• 2 carrots, diced 

• ½ yellow onion, diced

• 4 poblano peppers, roasted, diced

• 4 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste

• ½ teaspoon MSG

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• ½ teaspoon chili powder

• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

• 3 cups shredded chicken

• 1 can black beans, rinsed

• 7 ounces of corn, frozen or canned

• 6 cups chicken broth

• 1 tablespoon of Better Than Bouillon 

• 1/2 - 1 cup heavy cream

• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

• 2 tsp fresh lime juice

• 1/8 cup chopped cilantro

• For serving: lime wedges or tortilla chips

Directions

1. Roasting the poblano peppers (whole): Preheat oven to 450, roast 20 minutes, turning every 5 minutes, put them in a covered bowl to steam about 10 minutes, then peel off most the skin, remove the stems, scrape out the seeds and inner white ribs, and dice and add to soup in the next step.

2. Heat the butter in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the celery, carrots, onion, and poblano peppers. Sauté for 10-12 minutes until the vegetables are tender, salting a little along the way. During the last 5 minutes, open up a spot and add garlic to saute for 30 seconds, then stir in and add all the spices and cilantro as well.

3. Add the shredded chicken, corn, beans, broth, and MSG. Stir, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.

4. Add heavy cream and shredded cheese. Stir until the cheese has fully melted. Cover and simmer for an additional 15 minutes. 

5. Taste for salt and add more if needed, and add the lime juice. Serve in bowls and topped with lime wedges.

Drea's Hot Tips

1. For recipes that call for carrots "peeled and diced" like this one: I once forgot to peel the carrots, and it tasted the same. So I took that step off!

2. I use the refrigerated or frozen pre-chopped onions when I'm feeling lazy. When the onions aren't one of the main ingredients, I can't taste the difference too much. 

3. Sometimes I use pre-minced garlic (jarlic) as well. It's pretty easy to tell that it's not as good--but the replacement works fairly well in a recipe like this one.

4. For the poblano roasting, try to remove most the seeds and the white inner rib thing after roasting and before dicing, since they're bitter. 

5. I only have half-and-half and no heavy cream most times, so I add it at the very end, off heat. Heavy cream is safe to simmer, but half-and-half can only get warmed or else it curdles.

Nutrition

Serving: 1SERVING | Calories: 438KCAL | Carbohydrates: 11G | Protein: 29G | Fat: 32G | Saturated Fat: 15G | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3G | Monounsaturated Fat: 11G | Cholesterol: 116MG | Sodium: 860MG | Potassium: 624MG | Fiber: 2G | Sugar: 4G | Vitamin A: 4484IU | Vitamin C: 51MG | Calcium: 206MG | Iron: 2MG