Southwestern Chipotle Taco Soup

Why This Southwestern Chipotle Taco Soup Works

As the pot heats up, the ground beef browns and leaves little browned bits on the bottom. Those bits mix into the soup and give it a deeper, meaty taste. The beef also shares some fat with the onions and garlic, so they soften instead of burning and start to taste sweeter and milder.

After the peppers go in, they start out firm but relax in the hot pot. They keep a slight bite, so the soup doesn’t feel mushy. Once the beans, corn, tomatoes, and tomato sauce are added with the broth, everything has enough liquid to move around and simmer. During this simmer time, the starch from the beans and the tomato sauce slowly thickens the broth, so it goes from watery to more like a light chili.

While everything cooks together, the chipotle in adobo, cumin, smoked paprika, and oregano spread through the whole pot instead of sitting in one spot. At the end, the lime juice and cilantro go in off the heat, so they stay bright and fresh and don’t taste dull or cooked.

Mistakes To Avoid

Cranking the heat too high when browning the beef makes the outside burn in spots while the inside steams and stays a bit gray and rubbery. Those burnt bits then sit in the soup and give random bitter bites instead of a deep, even browned base.

Adding the onions, garlic, and peppers before the beef is mostly cooked leaves a lot of liquid in the pot. The meat then boils in the vegetable juices instead of browning, so the soup ends up thinner and the beef pieces stay soft and a little spongy.

Dumping in way too much chipotle in adobo turns the soup harshly hot and smoky. The heat builds as it simmers, so the broth can start to feel sharp in the throat and the other ingredients just taste like they’re sitting in spicy liquid.

Skipping the simmer or cutting it very short keeps the broth from thickening at all. The soup then eats more like a chunky stew floating in watery tomato juice, and the beans and peppers don’t soften into the broth.