This White Chicken Chili Soup makes for a wonderful hot meal on a cold winter's night. It is really somewhere between a chili and a soup, a little thinner than your standard chili. You can add more or less liquid to fine-tune it to your preferred consistency. This soup is loaded with veggies, herbs, spices and both vegetarian and chicken protein. Serve it with bowls of avocado, radishes, cilantro, feta cheese, tortilla chips and lime squeezes. Let everyone garnish their own bowls as they please.

How to Make White Chicken Chili Soup

Here are the steps:

Roast the Pepper & Chili

For this Chicken Chile Soup, I start by roasting red bell peppers and poblano chilies. I seed the peppers and chilies and cut them into flat pieces. Pop them in a 500-degree oven until they begin to blacken and the skin puffs up. Then I toss them in a paper bag and let them steam while I continue making the soup. When the peppers are cool, I peel off the skins, dice them and set them aside until I am ready to add them to the soup pot.

Processing Garlic, Jalapeno and Onion

So many recipes call for mincing onions and sautéing them first before adding chopped onions. To me, this is a recipe for burning your garlic. I find if you sauté the garlic and onion together, they cook evenly without burning. To prep them in the food processor so that the garlic is finely minced and the onion is more roughly chopped, I start by whirling the garlic continuously in the food processor until I achieve a fine mince. Sometimes I stop to scrape down the sides and whirl again. For this Chicken Chili Soup, I also want the jalapeños finely minced, so I add them to the minced garlic and whirl again. Finally, I add the onion to the processor bowl and pulse, not whirl, to achieve a larger chop. Be careful not to over-process or you will have onion juice!

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I sauté the garlic, onions, and jalapeños together for about 15 minutes, then added the herbs and spices and cook for a few more minutes.

Beans, Beans and More Beans

I've been searching for ways to get more beans into my diet. Why? Beans are packed with plant protein and fiber, two things we all could use more of. Did you know the one common denominator of all the different Blue Zone centenarian diets is that they eat 1/2 to 1 cup of beans every day?

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Beans are rich in fiber, something most Americans do not get nearly enough of. The average American gets only half of the recommended 25 to 30 grams of fiber per day. Fiber is essential for feeding your gut biome. The scientific evidence is mounting on how important a healthy gut biome is to so many body systems, from your immune system, to mental health, to cardiac health, and weight management. One cup of beans, depending on the type, provides 13 to 16 grams of fiber, a good chunk of your daily fiber requirements. While extremely convenient, canned beans are not all equal. I compared these two brands when making this White Chicken Chili Soup. The Carmelina beans are imported from Italy and contain just two ingredients: beans and water. The S & W beans have more ingredients: beans, water, salt, calcium chloride ( a firming agent), and calcium disodium edta (protects color). I personally prefer the Italian Carmelina beans. Why? I think fewer ingredients are better; I distrust long chemical names; and I prefer to control the amount of salt in a dish myself rather than have the manufacturer do it for me.

My Sneaky Method for Adding More Beans

This soup has a whopping 7.5 cups of beans, so at six servings, you are getting more than your 1 cup-a-day centenarian dose of beans.  And the best part is you don't feel like you are eating a pot of beans. I puree one 15-ounce can of cannellini beans and use it to thicken the broth. The pureed beans literally disappear, leaving the broth a little thicker and nutritionally denser.  I frequently use this pureed bean trick to thicken and enhance both soups and pasta sauce.

Method For Pureeing Beans

I prefer to use a food processor to puree the beans. For this recipe, I first use the food processor to mince the garlic and jalapeño and chop the onions, so it is a no-brainer to rinse out the bowl and use it to puree the beans. Alternatively, you can use a stick blender or even mash the beans with a wooden spoon against the side of the pot. The beans won't be as finely mashed, or as invisible as they are if you fully puree them in a food processor, but the soup will still be delicious.

Cook the Chicken in the Broth

Chicken stock is added to the garlic, jalapeno, onion, herb and spice mixture. The pureed beans are whisked in until they disappear into the broth. I add the chicken thighs to cook until they reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees. Next, I remove the cooked chicken thighs and let them rest on a plate until they have cooled. I shred or chop the chicken and set it aside until I am ready to add it back to the soup pot.

Add the Veggies and Remaining Beans

Next, I add the zucchini and remaining cannellini and black beans, and simmer until the zucchini is nearly done. Add the diced peppers, chicken, corn and cilantro and cook for another 5 minutes. Adjust the seasoning and serve with crumbled feta, diced avocado, sliced radishes and tortilla chips.

My New Soup Pot

My husband bought me a wonderful new stainless soup pot that is perfect for making a triple batch of this soup. It was a huge extravagance, but a pot that will last me the rest of my life, and likely be passed on to my children. Right now I am doing a lot of big batch cooking and freezing to load up my son and daughter-in-law's freezer as they are expecting my first grandchild.

Note: the above pictures depict a triple recipe. I like to make a big batch of this soup and freeze it for future meals.

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