Designed with the busy home cook in mind, this Mexican chicken soup requires zero vegetable chopping or prep work aside from measuring a handful of spices. It makes a big batch of soup you can use to feed a small army or horde for your weekly meal prep since it reheats really well. Every serving has 17 grams of filling protein with just 175 calories, 15 grams of carbs, and 5 grams of fat.
How to Make Mexican Chicken Soup
Like I said, this is an easy one. You should be able to have it prepped and cooking in about 5 minutes. I’ll go through all the ingredients and potential modifications in the post below. If you’re feeling adherent, feel free to skip down to the full recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Add chicken thighs, stewed tomatoes, black beans, corn, cerveza, chicken stock, and a Mexican seasoning blend to a pressure cooker.
You can nearly always swap chicken thighs for chicken breast, but I’d encourage you to go with chicken thighs if possible. The extra fat content provides flavor and keeps the chicken super tender. And the nutrition facts aren’t hindered all that much by using thighs instead of breasts.
The seasoning blend for this Mexican chicken soup is the same I used for my Mexican shredded chicken thighs and Mexican potatoes with one exception—onion powder. To keep this soup as simple as possible, onion powder takes the place of dicing and sautéing an onion or two at the beginning of cooking.
For a shortcut, you may look at something like the ranch seasoning in my slow cooker creamy chicken taco soup or the fajita seasoning in my shortcut pulled chicken.
A common question from my shredded chicken recipe was about the cerveza. The beer is there for flavor, and the alcohol will cook off. So don’t worry about getting tipsy on this Mexican chicken soup. That is, unless we’re talking tipsy on flavor. You can swap it out 1:1 for extra chicken stock, or I’ve seen several people mention a non-alcoholic cerveza from Athletic Brewing.
And finally, if you have ingredients like the fire roasted corn and tomatoes from my stuffed pepper soup, those are always great substitutes for regular canned corn.
Pressure cook for 15 minutes.
I always use a food thermometer to double check cooked proteins. You want your chicken thighs to reach an internal temperature of at least 165ºF.
One other note I’ll mention here is that if you give your Mexican chicken soup a stir and decide you’d like it a bit thicker, you can use your pressure cooker’s sauté function to reduce the soup a bit more while you shred the chicken in a separate bowl.
Can I make this Mexican chicken soup in a crockpot?
You betcha. My slow cooker chicken stew cooks 2.5 pounds of chicken for 5-6 hours on low or 2-3 hours on high, for comparison.
With chicken thighs you have a lot of wiggle room. If you’re using chicken breasts, you might invest in a wireless meat thermometer like I used in my Traeger pot roast to set an alarm for the perfect internal temperature.
Shred or chop the cooked chicken thighs.
Like I mentioned in my chili coconut pulled chicken thighs, forks get the job done just fine when it comes to thighs. Chicken breast, on the other hand, can be a bit more labor intensive to shred. A pair of meat claws, stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or even a hand mixer all make shredding a bit easier.
Add the shredded chicken thighs back to the soup.
And that’s a wrap—you’re done! If you’re not serving or storing right away, be sure to set your pressure cooker to its keep warm function so you don’t continue cooking your Mexican chicken soup.
Serve with tortilla strips or chips, cilantro, cheese, and lime wedges.
I made baked tortilla strips using the same extra thin corn tortillas I used for my air fryer chicken taquitos, beef and cheese baked tacos, copycat Taco Bell Mexican Pizzas, and a beaucoup of other recipes. To make your own, slice the tortillas into thin strips, spray with a tiny bit of cooking spray, place on baking sheet, and bake for about 15 minutes at 400ºF.
In addition to all the fixin’s you see above, I love serving this Mexican chicken soup with a dollop (or three) of fat free Greek yogurt. If you’re feeling adventurous and love a creamy soup, you could even add some fat free cream cheese and Greek yogurt to the soup after it’s fully cooked like in my super popular high protein taco soup recipe. And if you’re looking for another sweater weather recipe to try, check out my Instant Pot chicken birria next.
However you serve it, I have a feeling you’re going to love it. Let me know what you think once you’ve made a batch! And if you have any questions about the recipe, drop a comment at the very bottom of this post.
Pressure Cooker Mexican Chicken Soup
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs
- 2 cans, 15 oz Stewed Tomatoes
- 15 oz can Black Beans
- 15 oz can Corn
- 16 oz Chicken Stock
- 12 oz Cerveza, or more chicken stock
- 2 tsp Kosher Salt
- 2 tsp Garlic Powder
- 2 tsp Onion Powder
- 2 tsp Chipotle Chili Powder
- 2 tsp Dried Oregano
- 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Ground Coriander
Instructions
- Add all the ingredients except the chicken thighs to a pressure cooker. Stir everything together before adding the chicken.
- Seal and pressure cook for 15 minutes with quick release pressure (vent immediately).
- Release the pressure and transfer the chicken to a bowl to shred.
- Add the shredded chicken back to the soup, stirring well.
- Serve with shredded cheese, tortilla chips or strips, cilantro, fat free Greek yogurt, and lime wedges, if desired.
Notes
Nutrition Facts Notes
- Each 1-cup serving of chicken soup has 2 WW SmartPoints (blue).
- If you swap the chicken thighs for chicken breast, each serving would have 155 calories, 19g protein, 15g carbs, and 2g fat.
I made this Pressure Cooker Mexican soup on the first day of Fall as a cold front was pushing through town. The warmth of the spices and the heat of the soup gave us a warm comforted feeling. The smell of the corriander in the released steam from the pot made the house smell as delicious as the soup. I did replace the Cerveza with the same volumen of additional Chicken Stock and don’t think I lost anything for it. Thanks for sharing such a simple and fantastic tasting recipe!
My boyfriend tasted this and said it was good enough to be on a restaurant menu. This will be kept in rotation as the Midwest gets cooler. I didn’t use a cervesa, all chicken stock and it was so flavorful.
This is hands down one of my favorite fall recipes. I made it with more chicken stock instead of Cerveza and was scared the flavor would be lacking but boy, was I wrong. I love this recipe because I can throw it all in the pan and just let it cook itself!!
I was looking for something comforting but also light on cals for the cooler nights and this really hit the spot!
We made this soup tonight and wow…. it was amazing! I was skeptical with so much cinnamon but I can’t imagine it without it! We used chicken breast instead of thighs, topped with greek yogurt drizzle, chopped cilantro, crushed tortilla chips, and sliced avocado. It was so good. This will definitely become a regular in our home!
Do you drain any of the cans or just put the whole can in? Thanks for the recipe!
Nope, go straight in!
I just got a pressure cooker so I’m new to the game. Can I throw in still frozen chicken breast for this, or they have to be thawed first?
Normally I’d say frozen would work fine with minimal cook time changes, but it might be a little tricky with a soup recipe. I would recommend thawing them first for best results.
If I only have 1lb of thighs, do I half everything including the liquids (stock and beer)?
I would cut the tomatoes and chicken stock in half. If it looks too thick you could add some stock.
This was delicious, as expected! I’m cooking for two, so only used one pound of thighs, as Mason suggested I used 1 can of tomatoes instead of two. I also didn’t use beer, instead I used a combo of tomato sauce and broth, mostly because I had to use of my tomato sauce today! Next time I will try it with the beer 🙂
Can this be made in the crockpot? If so, does the recipe need to change at all?
Yes, there’s a note in the post. 😉 I’d put everything in a crockpot and cook for 2-3 hours on high until the chicken is fully cooked. Then shred and let rest in the juices for a little bit if possible. Enjoy!