Cooking with Kids: Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup

Bowls of chicken tortilla soup topped with sour cream and tortilla chips, served with a side of tortilla chips.

Encouraging Speech & Creating Yum! Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup

Kid Approved! Easy recipe for those nights when you need to serve a quick, hot meal that’s fast, but still satisfying. It is so easy, in fact, that your children can make it with a little bit of help and together you’ll create a satisfying meal for the family in no time.

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To learn how to make recipe

Chicken Tortilla Soup Ingredients

1-16 oz of chicken broth
1 can 16 ounce organic black beans
24 oz chunky salsa (we use mild)
One can chili ready tomatoes
1 teaspoon cumin
2 tsp chopped garlic
1 handful of fresh cilantro
2 cooked chicken breast (shredded)
1 tsp salt (optional: taste first, may not be necessary)

Chicken Tortilla Soup Prep and Directions:

Adult: Assemble, measure out and open all of the ingredients. Drain and rinse the can of black beans.

Child: Add all of the ingredients into the pot and stir.

Adult: Move pot to stove, turn on burner (high to medium high) begin cooking soup.

Adult/Child: Stir soup until it begins to boil, then turn burner down to medium low and continue cooking for about 20- 30 minutes until it is heated through and will thicken slightly.

Adult: Ladle out servings of soup into individual bowls.

Child: Sprinkle a pinch or two of Mexican cheese (4 cheese) on top of the soup. Add a dollop (blob) of Greek yogurt and a few “crunched up” tortilla chips into each bowl.

Adult/Child: Serve with a salad and tortilla chips for a complete meal!

Eat! Talk! Enjoy!

Language Time Tips:

1. Build vocabulary: Use nouns and actions. Nouns: chicken, tomatoes, garlic, soup, bowls. Actions: measure, mix, add, stir, pour, spread, heat, serve, and ladle.

2. Colors and Size: There are many colors in this soup mix: Red from the tomatoes and salsa, black for the beans, white for the yogurt, green for the cilantro, yellow for the cheese. As you are preparing the ingredients, ask your child, “put the red ingredients in the pot”, “put the green herb in the pot”, etc. This will assess your child’s receptive language of colors. With all of the ingredients being different sizes ask your child, “Should we shred a small piece of.”

3. Comment and Describe: Encourage words such as “warmt”, “tangy”,”thick” and “spicy”. Let your child taste each ingredient of the recipe and discuss the flavors. The tomatoes can be sweet, soft or “mushy’. The beans can be firm and salty. This use of commenting can help your child communicate better with regards to requesting specific foods at meals such as saying, “I want a crunchy food” (tortilla), “I want a soft food” (yogurt), for example.

4. Sequencing and recalling information: There are definite steps to this recipe but certain ingredients can be mixed into the soup in no specific order. For example, the tomatoes can go into the bowl before the salsa, and the beans can go into the pot before the cilantro. They can be mixed in any order. After you are done with the steps to making this yummy soup, ask your child what you did first, next, etc. Discuss what would happen if you were to do these steps out of order?

5. Answering and asking “wh” questions: Sample “wh” questions include: Sample “wh” questions include, “What is this soup for?” “What food groups are in this recipe (fruit, dairy, vegetable, etc…)?” “What makes this taste so good?”, “Why do we let the soup “get thick” in the pot?”

Literacy! Try a fun syllable activity by counting how many syllables are in each ingredient. What ingredient has the most syllables? How about the least amount of syllables?

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This post originally appeared on our January/February 2017 Magazine

Cooking with Kids: Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup

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