Slow Cooker Chicken Enchilada Soup

This post was initially published in February of 2021.

I miss eating in restaurants. It’s not even the food I’m missing. It’s the experience. I’ve been supporting local restaurants all throughout the pandemic, so I’ve been spoiled with my favorite dishes from neighbourhood spots. What I miss is being in an environment that isn’t my home. A space where none of my responsibilities are hovering around me. A place where there is a server. Then there’s that moment between ordering and receiving your dish when you excitedly chat because the anticipation of something delicious to come swims in your belly. Or when someone delivers you another margarita. A dessert is something you didn’t have to bother baking. All of it.

I also miss meals at my favorite restaurants in places we travel to regularly. The grinders from the pizza palace by my parent’s home in Connecticut. The milkshake topped with a piece of confetti cake at our beloved burger bar in New York City. Finally the chicken enchilada platter at the Mexican joint in Marco Island we wait all year to visit. Normally, after Christmas, our family begins the countdown for our annual trip to the sunny island in March. This year there is no countdown. No long, sticky days at the beach with our dearest friends from NYC who we meet there. No homemade donuts at the coffee shop by the beach. No enchiladas.

Slow Cooker Chicken Enchilada Soup

This slow cooker dish is like the best authentic enchilada platter full of hand-rolled enchiladas, flavourful rice and black beans rolled together in a single soup.

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Servings: 6

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Mexican

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken thighs about 8 thighs
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper
• 3-4 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped
• 6 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups converted rice converted rice has been par boiled and will cook in the allotted time. If you want to use brown rice, pre-ccok the rice and add it at the end of the cooking proces.
• 1 398 ml can black beans, drained
• 1 cup frozen or fresh corn
• 1 lime, juiced

Method

 

1. In your slow cooker, add the onion, garlic and chicken. Sprinkle with chili powder, cumin, salt, oregano and pepper. Add the chilis, rice and chicken stock then stir. Add beans, corn and juice of lime. Give it another stir.

   Cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 7 hours.

   Remove cooked chicken thighs to a cutting board and shred with a fork. Add chicken back into the slow cooker and stir.

   Serve with tortilla chips, fresh cilantro, crumbled feta, sour cream, avocado and, if you're like my husband, hot sauce.

This soup is my ode to our vacation platter that won’t be this March. It features everything my usual order of Enchilada Rojas include– shreds of juicy chicken wrapped in handmade tortillas and sides of flavourful rice and black beans–dumped into a soup. How the restaurant prepares its roja sauce is a mystery to me, but I wasn’t looking to make the sauce. I just wanted the flavours, so I researched the ingredients. What I found was this basic sauce in Mexican cuisine has so many versions. A few of the recipes I uncovered included chipotles in an adobo sauce, so I added them to the soup. I knew they would add the subtle smoke and spice of the restaurant’s dish, and I love them in the bean puree I make for my spicy black bean enchilada cups found here. I also noticed marjoram in some authentic, homemade enchilada sauces so I added that too. The result is a super flavourful soup that acts like a stew and, for me, is a capsule of happy memories. Please give it a try. It may transport you to a place that makes you smile or, at least, give you dinner for two glorious nights.