Southwest Black Bean-Chicken Soup
This Southwest black bean chicken soup is a solid, stick-to-your-ribs kind of dinner. It’s loaded with tender black beans, shredded chicken, tomatoes, corn, and just enough chipotle to keep things interesting, and it comes with cornbread mini muffins on the side because soup without cornbread is just bad planning.
Servings: 18 cups
Ingredients
For the Southwest Black Bean-Chicken Soup:
- 1 pound dried black beans
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 2 (14 ounce) can canned diced tomatoes
- 1 onion chopped
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 1 red bell pepper coarsely chopped
- 1 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce pureed, not the whole can
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon dried Mexican spice mix
- 10 ounces frozen corn kernels defrosted
- 2 cups shredded cooked chicken
- 2 tablespoons fresh oregano chopped
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
- Sour cream
For the Cornbread Mini-Muffins:
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup plain yogurt
- 1 can cream-style corn
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
For the Southwest Black Bean-Chicken Soup:
- Sift through the dry beans to remove any small bean-size rocks. Place the beans in a bowl or pot, cover with cold water, and allow to soak overnight. Drain the beans and rinse them in a colander.
- Add the soaked beans to a large soup pot or Dutch oven with enough cold water to cover them by 3-inches. Bring the pot to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer the beans for 30 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes, chicken broth, onions, garlic, red pepper, chipotle chili and the dried spices. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1 hour. Add the corn and the shredded chicken, taste for seasoning and adjust as needed. Bring the soup back to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.
- When the beans are tender, remove from the heat and stir in the chopped oregano and cilantro. Ladle into soup bowls and add a dollop of sour cream and a sprig of cilantro to each serving with mini-cornbread muffins.
For the Cornbread Mini-Muffins:
- Preheat oven to 425°F spray a mini muffin pan with oil spray.
- Beat eggs and oil on medium speed for 2 minutes until foaming. Whisk in yogurt and creamed corn until well combined. Set aside
- Whisk together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the center and add the wet mixture, stirring just to combine and no streaks of the cornmeal-flour mixture is visible.
- Using a small-size cookie scoop fill each mini- muffin cavity of the prepared pan 2/3 full, transfer to the oven and bake for 13-15 minutes, remove from the oven, transfer the muffins to a wire rack to
Notes
- Two chicken breasts, poached and shredded. I used the breast meat from a rotisserie chicken.
- When opening a can of chipotle chiles I usually only need one or two of them. The remaining chiles are pureed and portioned into 2-ounce lidded containers and frozen for future use.
- I used a 24-cavity mini-muffin tin, this recipe makes enough batter for 40 cornbread mini-muffins. Be sure to re-spray the muffin cavities again for the remaining batch.
Nutrition
Serving: 1 serving | Calories: 157kcal | Carbohydrates: 24g | Protein: 14g | Fat: 1g | Sodium: 333mg | Fiber: 5g
