Blackstone-Charred Chicken Tortilla Soup
Deep flavor from a whole tray of Blackstone-charred vegetables blended into the broth, thickened with corn tortillas and masa harina. Big-batch and freezer-friendly.
Creator Verified
- 40 min
- Prep
- ~3.5 hrs (slow cooker) or ~2 hrs (stovetop)
- Cook
- 34
- Ingredients
- serves 8–10
- Yield
Ingredients
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Soup
Avocado-tomato topping & serving
Steps
- Prep the chicken: salt, pepper, and cut the chicken into bite-sized squares.
- Char the veggies on the Blackstone, working in stages with oil: whole bell peppers, grape tomatoes, jalapeños, peeled garlic cloves, and the quartered onion. Char everything, setting each batch aside as it finishes.
- Sear the chicken on the griddle, using splashes of the broth to deglaze. Set aside, turn off the griddle, and bring everything inside.
- Dice the charred veggies.
- Start the pot: add the broth to the slow cooker on low with the charred onions, chicken, and bay leaves.
- Blend the flavor base: puree all the charred veggies in a blender. Add all the spices, the chipotles and adobo sauce, the black beans, the diced tortillas, and the fresh lime juice. Puree until smooth.
- Combine: pour the blended mixture into the slow cooker — it will fill it. Stir, cover, and cook 30 minutes.
- Thicken: ladle some soup into a mixing bowl, whisk in the masa harina until smooth, and stir it back into the pot.
- Finish: add the fire-roasted corn and cook on low 3 hours. Stovetop alternative: simmer in a heavy pot over medium heat about 1½ hours.
- Make the topping while it cooks: stir together the diced sweet onion, grape tomatoes, avocado, juice of ½ lime, sea salt, pepper, and smoked paprika.
- Serve with a dollop of the ranch sour cream, the avocado-tomato topping, crispy tortilla strips, and lime wedges.
- Freeze the rest: portion half into sealed containers, cool, and freeze.
Variations
- Stovetop — if the slow cooker dies on you (ask me how I know), simmer in a heavy pot over medium heat about 1½ hours instead of 3 on low.
Substitutions
- Mexican oregano → regular oregano
- Fewer chipotles for less spice; seed the jalapeños for less heat
Rachel's tips
- Charring the vegetables whole, then blending them, is the whole game — roasted depth in every spoonful, not just in the chunks.
- Diced corn tortillas blended into the base is the traditional thickener; the masa slurry doubles down on that toasted-corn flavor — and blending the black beans in makes the body silky without anyone knowing beans are in there.
- This intentionally makes a double batch. Freeze half.
Equipment
Blackstone griddle, slow cooker (or heavy pot), blender
Watch the video
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The story
Most tortilla soups start with sautéed onions in a pot. This one starts with a full griddle of fire: whole bell peppers in three colors, grape tomatoes, jalapeños, garlic cloves, and quartered onion, all charred on the Blackstone, then blended into the broth along with the spices and — the old-school touch — diced corn tortillas that dissolve and thicken the soup from within, backed up by a masa harina slurry. It makes a huge batch on purpose. Half goes in the freezer, and future-you says thank you.
True story: the day I filmed this, my Crockpot died mid-recipe. It couldn't even bring the soup to a simmer. I transferred everything to a pot on the stove and finished it there. Both methods are here, and the stovetop version is faster.
Recipe by Rachel · From TexMex Mashup on YouTube · Dietary: gluten-free if tortillas/strips are 100% corn · Contains: dairy (sour cream)