Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup

Chicken Tortilla Soup prepared in Instant Pot for an instant bone-warming, and delicious chili night dinner. This tortilla soup recipe needs only pantry ingredients, gets ton of flavor and nutrients, in minutes, with Instant Pot pressure cooking. 

Chicken Soup is staple in our home in cold winter days. Chicken Noodle Soup, Chicken Khao Soi or Pho - a bowl of chicken soup is delightful to eat, plus warms body from within. Specially if soup is filling and flavorful such as this Tortilla Soup, it is more of a complete dinner than a side. 

This Tortilla Soup recipe is also special because I don't have to think twice to prepare this even on weeknights. Pantry ingredients and my Instant Pot's Pressure Cooking makes it our winter-weeknight-favorite meal. 

(If you like to prepare ahead like I do all the time. This soup refrigerates well up-to a week and can be frozen up-to 6 months.) 

Like I said, to make this chicken tortilla soup, I use simple pantry ingredients. This helps me serve this soup at moment's notice without a trip to grocery store.

The main ingredients for tortilla soup are chicken breast, chicken stock, tomatoes, garlic, onion, cumin, chipotle,  and herbs. When ingredients are that simple, it is important to use good quality ingredients for good flavor and develop flavor using cooking. To achieve this,  I do two things:

1) Saute tomatoes, onion, garlic and seasonings until everything is cooked, seasoned and tomatoes are darker in color. This step takes 5-8 minutes but make soup way more tastier, gives ton of flavor to base tortilla broth.
2) Use Chicken Stock instead of plain water.  This shortcut helps get a flavor and nutrient rich soup ready in no time. Stock does all the heavy lifting, plus seasons the broth, and chicken as it cooks.

Note: Even though I highly recommend using stock. You can still use water instead of Chicken Stock with a chicken or vegetable bouillon.

Instant Pot's pressure cooking does the rest of job. Once tomatoes base is cooked, I add in whole chicken breast, fresh herbs and seasonings into the Instant Pot along with Chicken Stock. Only 6 minutes at high pressure cooking and tortilla soup is ready to assemble/serve.

In this time, chicken breast is cooked, moist and can be shredded with hands or two forks. 

At this point, I assemble the soup by adding a portion of shredded chicken into a soup bowl, followed by ladle of tortilla soup broth, and toppings such as tortilla strips, red onion, avocado, jalapeno. Queseo fresco or crema. 

Note: Use of crema or cheese is absolutely optional. Soup is dairy free, and also gluten free when served with gluten free corn chips and no cheese.

I hope you will enjoy my quick and easy Instant Pot Tortilla Soup recipe. Make some tonight or tomorrow to serve on side for Taco Tuesday. Don't forget to check Tortilla strips recipe in notes. Serve lots of fresh topping to make-sour-own soup experience.

Have a wonderful start of the week.

-Savita x