Chicken and Lime Soup

Recipe from Budget Bites.

I'm have fully claimed my seat upon the YAY IT'S FALL!! train. Soup. All the soup. I want nothing but soup. What I love about soup is that it's totally easy to make healthy (and it's almost impossible to buy actual healthy pre-made soup. SODIUM BOMBS) and to store. 

I had to doctor this recipe a smidge, because I didn't have everything on hand. Happens. 

INGREDIENTS		COST
2 Tbsp	olive oil	$0.24
1 medium	yellow onion	$0.28
2 stalks	celery	$0.45
1 medium	jalapeno (nope didn't have, used cayenne pepper)	$0.09
4 cloves	garlic	$0.32
3/4 lb.	chicken breast	$1.46
6 cups	chicken broth*	$0.42
1 (14.5 oz.) can	diced tomatoes w/chiles (used 1 can of tomato paste)	$0.95
1 tsp	oregano	$0.05
1/2 Tbsp	cumin	$0.08
1 medium	lime	$0.33
1/2 bunch	cilantro	$0.43
1 medium	avocado (didn't have. boo.)	$1.29
TOTAL		$6.39

*I use Better Than Bouillon chicken soup base to make my broth because it is less expensive than buying canned or boxed broths. (OK and I use the boxed low sodium broth from Trader Joes....haven't gotten around to trying that Bouillon stuff yet)

STEP 1: Dice the onion, celery, and jalapeno (scrape the seeds out of the jalapeno before dicing). Mince the garlic. Cook the onion, celery, jalapeno, and garlic in olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes or until tender. 

STEP 2: Add the chicken breast, chicken broth, canned tomatoes with chiles, oregano, and cumin to the pot. Bring the whole pot up to a boil over high heat then reduce the heat to low, place a lid on top, and let simmer for one hour.

STEP 3: After simmering for an hour with a lid on, carefully remove the chicken breast from the pot and use two forks to shred the meat. Return the meat to the pot. Squeeze the juice of one lime into the soup. Get as much juice as possible from the lime by using a spoon to scrape the inside of the lime.

STEP 4: Rinse the cilantro and then roughly chop the leaves. Add to the pot, give it a quick stir, and serve. Dice the avocado and add a few chunks to each bowl. 

(might want to toss a bit of salt and pepper up in there, too)

Avo and some crunched up tortilla chips would be KILLER on this. I mean, it's BASICALLY a chicken tortilla soup. I loved how non-fussy the chicken was. Just chuck it in there raw, then shred it up an hour later. I didn't have diced tomatoes, but the tomato paste actually worked out pretty perfectly. 

Crap, I just realized that I bought some carrots to toss in there, but I forgot them!! Soups like this are nice, because you can just cram all the veggies you want in there. I bet you could put spinach or kale in this, too. Veggies are our friends, folks. 

Throwing this one in the keeper file.