Whether cooking for comfort or putting dinner on the table, these are some of the recipes the Simply Recipes team turned to again and again throughout 2020. Continue reading “Our Favorite Recipes From 2020” » LEGGI TUTTO
This is truly the best chicken tortilla soup! This classic Mexican soup is made a tomato based soup topped with crispy fried tortillas soup, avocado, Jack cheese, cilantro, and lime.
Photography Credit: Sally Vargas
Tortilla soup encompasses all the things I love best in Mexican cooking.
Do you like salsa? Avocado? Cilantro? Fresh hot tortilla chips? Tortilla soup is like a soup version of my favorite enchilada, with chicken, and tortilla chips. And avocado.
Video! How to Make Chicken Tortilla Soup
Don’t Skip Frying the Tortillas
The essential step that distinguishes tortilla soup from other Mexican soups is that you fry strips of corn tortillas in oil first, and then use the tortilla cooking oil to build the soup.
Tortillas chips aren’t merely a garnish for this soup. By using the tortilla frying oil as a base for the soup you infuse the whole soup with the warm flavor of toasted corn tortillas!
Best Tortillas for Chicken Tortilla Soup
The best tortillas to use for tortilla soup are stale yellow corn tortillas. Yellow corn tortillas are sturdier than white corn tortillas and have a richer flavor when cooked. Homemade is best, of course, but store-bought tortillas will also work for this recipe.
The tortillas should be a little stale, or dry; they’ll fry up more easily that way. My guess is that tortilla soup was first invented as a way to use leftover tortillas.
Since I don’t usually have dry tortillas sitting around, I put my fresh-from-the-fridge corn tortillas in a 200°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes. That’s just enough heat to dry them sufficiently so they fry easily.
More Mexican soups to try
From the editors of Simply Recipes
Time-Saving Short Cut for Chicken Tortilla Soup
If you don’t have leftover chicken already in the fridge for this recipe, pick up a rotisserie chicken on your way home from work. (Save the bones to make homemade chicken stock!)
You can also quickly poach a few chicken breasts or thighs for this recipe.
How to Store Chicken Tortilla Soup
Store the fried tortilla chips separately in an airtight container at room temperature. The soup itself can be kept refrigerated for up to five days, or frozen for up to three months.
More Great Mexican Soups & Stews
Updated December 27, 2020 : We added a video showing you how to make chicken tortilla soup. No changes to the original recipe. Enjoy!
Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe
This recipe is easily doubled.
This recipe is adapted from one we found years ago on the website of Muir Glen, makers of organic canned tomatoes. Muir Glen makes a particularly good “fire-roasted” canned tomato, which is well suited to Mexican dishes.
Ingredients
6 (6-inch) corn tortillas, preferably a little old and dried out
1/4 cup corn oil, peanut oil, or extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium Anaheim, poblano or jalapeño chile, seeded, veins removed, chopped (Depending on the hotness and flavor desired. You can also mix chiles – 1 Anaheim and a half jalapeño.)
4 cups chicken broth or homemade chicken stock
1 can (14.5 oz) crushed tomatoes (preferably fire-roasted)
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt (kosher or sea salt)
1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken
1 ripe avocado
1/2 cup (2 oz) shredded Monterey Jack cheese (or mild cheddar)
Chopped fresh cilantro
1 lime, cut into wedges
Method
1 Fry the tortilla strips: If you are starting with somewhat old, dried out tortillas, great. If not and you are starting with relatively fresh tortillas, put them on a baking sheet and put them in the oven at 200°F for 10 to 15 minutes to dry them out a bit. It is best to start with tortillas that don’t have a lot of moisture in them.
Cut the tortillas in half, and then cut the halves into 1/4-inch wide strips.
Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a 3-quart pot. Working in three batches, fry the tortilla strips in the oil, until lightly browned and crisp. Remove the tortilla strips from the pan and let drain on a paper-towel-lined plate.
2 Sauté the vegetables: Add the chopped onions to the pan, cook 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the chopped chile and cook for 2-3 minutes more, until the onions and chiles have softened. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds more.
3 Simmer the soup: Add the broth, tomatoes, and salt. Increase the heat to high, heat until the soup begins to boil, then reduce the heat to a low simmer, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the shredded chicken and cook until heated through.
4 Serve with tortilla strips and garnishes: To serve, pit, peel, and cut the avocado into 1-inch pieces. Divide half of the tortilla strips among 4 individual serving bowls; ladle in soup. Top with avocado and cheese; garnish with remaining tortilla strips and cilantro. Serve with lime wedges.
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Elise Bauer
Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family’s recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
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Let’s end 2020 with comfort food like chicken noodle casserole, a healthy and fresh vegetable soup made with Freekah, and Hoppin’ John for good fortune. Continue reading “Finish 2020 with 5 Tasty Weeknight Meals” » LEGGI TUTTO
1 Salt roast and let sit at room temp: Remove the beef roast from the refrigerator 3 hours before you start to cook it. Sprinkle it with salt all over and let it sit, loosely wrapped in the butcher paper. Roasts should be brought close to room temperature before they go into the oven, to ensure more even cooking.
2 Tie roast with kitchen string: If your butcher hasn’t already done so, cut the bones away from the roast and tie them back on to the roast with kitchen string. This will make it much easier to carve the roast, while still allowing you to stand the roast on the rib bones while cooking.
3 Preheat oven, season roast: Preheat your oven to 500°F (or the highest temp your oven reaches less than 500°F). Pat the roast dry with paper towels (pre-salting should have made the roast release some moisture), and sprinkle the roast all over with salt and pepper.
4 Place the roast fat side up and rib bones down in a roasting pan. Insert a meat thermometer (oven proof) into the thickest part of the roast, making sure that the thermometer isn’t touching a bone.
5 Brown roast at high temperature: Brown the roast at a 500°F temperature in the oven for 15 minutes.
6 Lower oven temp to finish roasting: Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F. To figure out the total cooking time, allow about 11-12 minutes per pound for rare and 13-15 minutes per pound for medium rare.
The actual cooking time will depend on the shape of the roast, how chilled your roast still is when it goes into the oven, and your particular oven. A flatter roast will cook more quickly than a thicker one. A chilled roast will take more time than one closer to room temp.
There are so many variables involved that affect cooking time, this is why you should use a meat thermometer. A prime rib roast is too expensive to “wing it”. Error on the rare side, you can always put the roast back in the oven to cook it more if it is too rare for your taste.
Roast in oven until thermometer registers 115°F for rare or 120°-130°F for medium. (The internal temperature of the roast will continue to rise after you take the roast out of the oven.)
Check the temperature of the roast using a meat thermometer an hour before you expect the roast to be done. For example, with a 10 pound roast, you would expect 2 hours of total cooking time for rare (15 minutes at 500° and 1 3/4 hours at 325°). In this case, check after 1 hour 15 minutes of total cooking time, or 1 hour after you lowered the oven temp to 325°. (A benefit of using a remote thermometer is that you don’t have to keep checking the roast, you’ll be able to see exactly what the temperature is by looking at the thermometer outside of the oven.)
If the roast is cooking too quickly at this point, lower the oven temperature to 200°F.
7 Let the roast rest: Once the roast has reached the temperature you want, remove it from the oven and place it on a carving board. Cover it with foil and let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes before carving. The internal temperature of the roast will continue to rise while the roast is resting.
8 Cut away strings, remove bones, slice roast: Cut away the strings that were used to hold the roast to the rack of rib bones. Remove the bones (you can save them to make stock for soup if you want.)
Then, using a sharp carving knife, slice meat across the grain for serving, making the slices about 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch thick.
9 Make the gravy
To make the gravy, remove the roast from the pan. Remove excess fat, leaving 1/4 cup of fat plus the browned drippings and meat juices in the roasting pan.
Place the roasting pan on the stove top on medium high heat. Use a metal spatula to scrape up drippings that might be sticking to the pan.
When the fat is bubbly, sprinkle 1/4 cup of flour over the fat and drippings in the pan.
Stir with a wire whisk to incorporate the flour into the fat. Let the flour brown (more flavor that way and you don’t have the taste of raw flour in your gravy.)
Slowly add 3 to 4 cups of water, milk, stock, or beer to the gravy. Continue to cook slowly and whisk constantly, breaking up any flour lumps.
The gravy will simmer and thicken, resulting in about 2 cups of gravy. (If you want less gravy, start with less fat and flour, and add less liquid.)
Season the gravy with salt and pepper and herbs to taste. (See also How to Make Gravy.) LEGGI TUTTO
Homemade Eggnog is EASY to make! Plus, it doesn’t have all the fillers of the store-bought stuff. Just cream, sugar, eggs, and spices. Enjoy it spiked or without alcohol for a kid-friendly version. Continue reading “Eggnog” » LEGGI TUTTO
Instant Pot Pot Roast shaves some time off oven-cooked and slow cooker methods. You can also cook the veggies right in the pot, making it an easy one-pot meal. Continue reading “Instant Pot Pot Roast with Balsamic and Rosemary” » LEGGI TUTTO
This toast-worthy dessert is a wonderful ending to Christmas or New Year's Eve dinner. Tart champagne-spiked red berry coulis is the perfect foil for ultra-rich and creamy white chocolate panna cotta. I've often talked about my love of holiday traditions here, and obviously most are food related. I've noticed a new one has developed quite accidentally: I love to ring in the New Year with panna cotta. It's so easy to make and even easier to dress up with a delicious spirit. It's a little bit fancy and looks beautiful in stemware or little dessert cups.Continued, click to read more… LEGGI TUTTO
An Old Fashioned is a true classic. Made with whiskey, sugar, Angostura bitters, and an orange peel (or cherry) for garnish, it’s a cocktail made for whiskey lovers!
Photography Credit: Alison Bickel
What did the trendy cocktail say to the classic cocktail? “I’m glad that you’re Old Fashioned.” And … thank you, folks, that’s all for tonight!
Even if you know nothing about cocktails, chances are you’ve at least heard of an Old Fashioned. Made with just four ingredients – whiskey, sugar, Angostura bitters, and an optional (but recommended) orange peel or Luxardo cherry garnish – the Old Fashioned is up there with other cocktail greats like the Manhattan, Negroni, and Sazerac.
It’s super simple to make, too, as is appropriate for a cocktail designed to highlight its main ingredient – whiskey!
Video! How to Make an Old Fashioned Cocktail
THE BEST WHISKEY FOR AN OLD FASHIONED
The best whiskey for an Old Fashioned is … the whiskey you like! Many reputable mixologists and cocktail enthusiasts have opined on whether you should use rye or bourbon, but honestly, you can use either. Which do you prefer? There – that’s your whiskey for an Old Fashioned!
I like this drink with bourbon. I used Buffalo Trace most recently, but other mid-tier bourbons like Maker’s Mark, Bulleit, or Knob Creek would all be excellent choices.
SUGAR CUBE OR SIMPLE SYRUP?
Old Fashioned purists say the proper thing to do is to muddle a sugar cube with the bitters (and either a little club soda or water) in the bottom of the rocks glass. Non-purists, like myself, think that’s nice but the sugar never seems to fully dissolve this way. Either my muddling skills are weak (quite possible), or there might be another way.
I’m in favor of using simple syrup for an Old Fashioned because it’s easy and convenient. Here’s how to make it.
IF YOU WANT TO EXPERIMENT, TRY DIFFERENT BITTERS
Angostura bitters is traditionally used in an Old Fashioned. (Fun fact: Apparently Angostura bitters is kind of like Coca Cola, in that only five people on earth know the recipe, which reportedly consists of over 40 different herbs and spices! That may be true, but I mostly smell nutmeg right off the bat.)
You can’t go wrong with Angostura bitters, but if you’re making an Old Fashioned in the winter or around the holidays, I recommend using a few dashes of Fee Brothers Old Fashioned Bitters instead. You get way more cinnamon and clove on the nose, like a winter holiday in a bottle.
MORE WHISKEY COCKTAILS TO ENJOY THIS WINTER:
Updated December 23, 2020 : We added a new video to help you make the best old fashioned cocktail ever. Enjoy!
Old Fashioned Recipe
Ingredients
2 ounces bourbon or rye whiskey
1/4 ounce simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Orange peel or Luxardo cherry, for garnish (optional)
Method
1 Make the drink: Add simple syrup and bitters to a rocks glass. Fill the glass with ice, and stir to combine. (My favorite stirrer for a single cocktail? This cake tester!) Add bourbon or rye and stir for about 30 seconds to chill and dilute. Garnish with orange peel or Luxardo cherry, if desired.
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Cambria Bold
Cambria Bold is a Senior Editor for Simply Recipes. She has almost a decade’s worth of online editorial experience and know-how, first as the Managing Editor for Apartment Therapy’s green living site Re-Nest (RIP) and later as the Design and Lifestyle Editor for Kitchn. She lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and their two little girls.
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