Green Chile Chicken Soup

A light and healthy Green Chile Chicken Soup made with mild hatch green chiles, potatoes, and chicken. Perfect for those chilly days!

This easy and healthy Green Chile Chicken Soup is made with many ingredients you likely have on hand. It uses precooked shredded or diced chicken along with other pantry staples. This soup recipe makes a good Green Chile Soup base that you can customize based on your preferences and what ingredients you have available.  

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• How to make
• Serving and Storage
• 📖 Recipe

This is perfect on a cold winter day, when you need a chicken soup, but prefer a little spice. The green chiles and jalapenos give a nice little kick of heat. This is the kind of soup I want when I have a little cold. It makes tasty leftovers; I think it tastes even better the next day. 

Ingredients

• Butter - Or canola oil for sautéing veggies in. 
• Onion - One medium diced yellow onion. 
• Jalapenos - Recipe calls for 2 chopped fresh jalapenos. This soup is on the slightly spicy side, you can omit the jalapenos if you would like to make it less spicy. 
• Minced Garlic
• Chicken Stock - I prefer to use stock or bone broth for a deeper flavor. Chicken broth may be substituted. I used Kitchen Basics Chicken Stock.
• Potatoes - I used one large russet potato. 
• Cream Style Corn - Using cream corn in soup helps add some creaminess, without adding additional fat. 
• Spices: Mexican oregano, cumin, salt, and black pepper
• Diced Mild Green Chiles - Uses 1-2 4.5 oz. cans of diced green chiles. You can use ½ c. of fresh or frozen roasted chiles too. 
• Chicken - Two cups of cooked diced or shredded chicken. If you don't have any cooked chicken at home, a rotisserie chicken will work and make it a quick and easy dinner.

Here are two easy slow cooker recipes for shredded chicken thighs and chicken breasts. 

How to make

Step 1. Melt butter in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and jalapeno and sauté until onion is tender and translucent. Add minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds, stirring so that it does not burn. 

Step 2. Add chicken stock, potatoes, cream corn, hatch chiles and spices to Dutch oven. Bring soup to a boil and then reduce heat to low; cover and let simmer for 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender. 

Step 3. Stir in cooked chicken and simmer for 5 minutes. Adjust spices to taste. Remove from heat and serve.  

To make in the slow cooker: Sautee onion and jalapenos in butter or oil under onions are translucent. Add to slow cooker cooked onions, jalapenos, chicken stock, garlic, potatoes, corn, green chilis, and spices. Cook on low until potatoes are tender. Add cooked chicken during the last 5 minutes of cooking. 

Variations

I like to use this easy green chili chicken soup as a base recipe and vary the add-ins depending on what I need to use up. 

Other add-ins:

• Carrots
• Diced celery - add when you add the onions. 
• White Beans
• Make it creamy by adding heavy cream or cream cheese.
• Diced cooked ham or brisket in place of the chicken.

Serving and Storage

For many Mexican and Tex-Mex soups, it's really the toppings that take it from tasting good to great. I like to top this with shredded cheese, fresh cilantro, avocado slices, lime juice and diced roma tomatoes. Tortilla chips or fried corn tortillas are always good too. 

Store cooked soup in an airtight container in the fridge. Best if eaten within 3-4 days. These are my favorite containers to store soup. I always try to put some in the freezer too. 

📖 Recipe

I hope you enjoy this recipe. Maybe you can even make enough to share with a neighbor or friend! 

Cheers,

Alaine

More recipes you may enjoy:

• Healthy White Chicken Chili
• Crockpot Green Chile Chicken

Green Chile Chicken Soup was originally published on My Texas Kitchen in January 2016. Updated in December 2023 with recipe modifications, new pictures and text.