Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup

I have this board on Pinterest called "It's Cool to Eat Soup."  

I think it's cool to eat soup, but not everyone in my family shares that sentiment.  I make it once a week anyway (usually on Monday so I can have leftovers for lunch the rest of the week), and require the girls to each have the tiniest bit of soup before they can have a treat.  

This brought on quite the emotional experience for Leah the night I made this soup, but that's another story for another day.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the recipe for Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup.  I barely adapted it from here.

 Ingredients:

• 1 lb chicken breasts, trimmed
• 1 and 1/2 cups frozen corn
• 15 oz can diced tomatoes, drained (I used petite diced because I like the smaller bits.  Target's store brand petite diced tomatoes are way better than Walmart's.  Seriously, everything is better at Target!)
• 5 cups chicken stock
• 3/4 cup green pepper, chopped
• 3/4 cup onion, chopped
• 2 (or 3) cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 or 3/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 or so teaspoon cumin
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt, divided
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• Shredded co-jack or cheddar cheese, crushed tortilla chips, lime, or whatever else you want to use to garnish your soup

*The recipe originally called for minced serrano pepper.  I forgot to buy it, but would have probably gotten a jalapeno instead, because that's what I'm more familiar with.  I didn't miss the spice, because I added more chili powder and cumin.

Look at this super fun garlic chopper thing that my brother and sister-in-law got me for Christmas!

I just put peeled garlic in, roll it around, and it works like a charm!

Moving on...

• Put the first 9 ingredients and 1 teaspoon salt and 3/4 teaspoon pepper in your slow cooker.
• I used my big, 6 quart slow cooker.
• Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours.  

I went for 8 hours on low.  Plus, my chicken was still about half way frozen and it worked great!

This is what was going on while I was cooking:

and 

Of course they always are so happy to sit by each other and nicely have a drink and a graham cracker.  They never ever fuss or fight with each other.  Ever. 

Ha!

:)

Back to the recipe!

• Prior to serving, remove the chicken breasts from the soup.  
• Put the chicken on a plate.
• Use two forks or your teeth to shred the chicken (I'm kidding about using your teeth to shred the chicken!  Please!  Use the forks!  Use the forks!)
• Season the chicken with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper or to taste.
• Put the shredded chicken back into the slow cooker and stir to combine.
• Serve up some soup in your bowl and top it with whatever you like!

I liked this a lot!  I thought it tasted pretty fresh for something from a slow cooker.  I feel like a lot of chicken tortilla soup recipes call for black beans, and while I am totally a fan of black beans, I really enjoyed this without them.  I think leftovers would freeze well, too!

Enjoy!