If you love Enchiladas and creamy soups, this is White Enchilada Soup is for you. It’s a It tastes like this ever popular Creamy White Chicken Enchiladas….except its in soup form!
Last Friday it was 40C/104F here in Sydney (which the newspapers labelled as “Fry-day” – ha ha). Then on Saturday it was 22C/72F and I was wearing a jumper to the beach.
The weather here at the moment is nuts. So I’m swinging between no-cook meals and winter comfort foods.
This soup clearly falls in the comfort food bucket! On Sunday I had friends over for an early Thanksgiving Dinner where a 5kg/10lb roast turkey took centre stage. (PS I made it using a GENIUS Dry Brining method – too late to start it for Thanksgiving now, but remember this recipe for Christmas!! Get it here. Oh, and get my full 2015 Thanksgiving / Christmas Menu and recipes here!).
As always, there was plenty of turkey leftover so I wanted to share a recipe today that is perfect for throwing leftover turkey into.
However, I made this recipe from scratch using chicken breast. But it’s very easy to adapt to use leftover turkey, and it means you’ll have this on the table in around 20 minutes!
But there’s a second reason I decided to share this Enchilada Soup with you today. It’s because I was in LA last week and canned green chilies were at the top of my shopping list. That probably sounds nuts to those of you in America, but it drives me nuts that it isn’t available here in Australia!
Why oh why? Old El Paso, please start sending canned green chilies here so I don’t need to bring back 20 cans every time I go to America!
YES I did! I had a whole second suitcase to bring back food from my travels. Most people go crazy shopping for clothes when they go to the US. I picked up a few essentials (I emphasise the word essentials! I had to have those earrings, the scarf, yet another black top!), but mostly, it was food. 🙂
Want to know what I brought back? Those of you in the US will think I’m so weird!! OK, so I brought: Lots of canned green chilis, plenty of chili powder (in Australia, chili powder is pure ground chili, much spicier), creole seasoning (proper stuff not available here), Old Bay Seasoning (very difficult to track down!), about 15 packets of Chex Mix (I’m officially obsessed, doesn’t exist here), Muddy Buddies (OMG, shoot me, I only brought 1 packet back, very distressed at the thought of it being empty), corn husks (to make tamales! Yay!), light corn syrup (suspiciously difficult to track down here) and a bunch of other “only in America” things like Salted Caramel Pringles (so wrong and yet so right) and Twinkies.
One very happy traveller, hunkered down back at home in Sydney with a pantry stockpiled with American goodies to sustain me until my next trip. 🙂
OH! Long winded way to say I wanted to use canned green chilis in a recipe which is why I’m sharing this White Enchilada Soup today! But to all non US readers, never fear! Simply substitute with either roasted green capsicum (bell peppers) or jalapeño. Easy! – Nagi x
Soup Dippers
Quick Cheesy Garlic Bread • Better-Than-Dominos Garlic Bread • Soft No Knead Dinner Rolls
PS In all the ramblings about the crazy food I brought back from America, I forgot to describe this soup! It’s creamy like a chowder but it tastes like White Enchiladas because there’s a teeny tang from the additional of sour cream plus the ingredients in this are pretty much what I put in Enchiladas. It is so good. SO so good. My friends’ picky teenage son is obsessed with this. That’s high praise! 🙂
PPS Toppings are not optional! Must have as many topping options as possible!
More hearty, filling soups loaded with flavour!
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Chicken Noodle Soup from scratch – or a quick version!
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Browse all Soups
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White Chicken (or Turkey) Enchilada Soup
Ingredients
- 400 g chicken breast
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Black pepper
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Soup
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 garlic cloves , crushed
- 1 onion , diced (brown, white, yellow)
- 3 tbsp plain flour
- 1 cup chicken broth / stock
- 4 cups milk (I used low fat)
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp coriander power
- 2 to 4 tbsp canned jalapeños , finely chopped OR 1 x 4.5oz / 127g canned chopped peeled green chili
- 1/4 cup sour cream (I used light)
- 1 1/2 cups corn (frozen or canned)
- 21 oz / 600g canned white beans (1 1/2 cans), drained
- 1/2 to 1 tsp salt
- Black pepper
Instructions
Chicken
- Slice the chicken breast into 1cm / 1/3" thick steaks. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Heat the oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add the chicken breast (in 2 batches if necessary) and cook each side for 2 minutes each or until golden and just cooked through.
- Transfer to a plate. Once cool enough to handle, shred with a fork or your hands (I do this while the soup is cooking), or chop it.
Soup
- Turn the heat down to medium and add butter into the same pot. When the butter is melted, add onion and garlic. Cook for 3 minutes or until the onion is translucent and soft.
- Add flour and cook for 2 minutes. Add chicken broth and cook, scraping the bottom of the pot to stir the brown bits into the liquid (extra flavour!).
- Add the milk, cumin powder, coriander and jalapeños. Turn the heat up to medium high and cook, whisking occasionally, until the soup thickens slightly - about 5 minutes.
- Whisk the sour cream in. Then add the corn, beans and shredded chicken. Cook for 1 minute or so until everything is heated through.
- Adjust salt to taste.
- Serve piping hot with all the trimmings!
Recipe Notes:
This is so smart for leftovers and it looks amazing!!! 🙂
Thanks so much! Something a little different for using turkey! 🙂
Dear Nagi, I’m putting this all together tomorrow when I wake up, it’s 8:18pm now, and what I want to know, is can I freeze this recipe. Please let me know ASAP. Many, many thanks. I forgot to tell you that I’m in the USA? Bonnie crim. Anxiously awaiting your reply. No way is this a duplicate comment.
Dear Nagi, I’m putting this all together tomorrow when I wake up, it’s 8:18pm now, and what I want to know, is can I freeze this recipe. Please let me know ASAP. Many, many thanks. I forgot to tell you that I’m in the USA? Bonnie crim. Anxiously awaiting your reply.
Hi Bonnie! YES this is great to freeze!! It will last about 3 days in the fridge, and about 2 months in the freezer. 🙂
Hi Nagi! Had to come back and say if Twinkies are the only thing we disagree about we are all good! 🙂
BA HA HA!!! Very true!! N x
Hi Nagi! I’d be happy to share my Cajun turkey with you and you can mess with it all you want! It originates from Chef Paul Prudhomme from New Orleans, who sadly passed away recently, but his legend lives on! 🙂
Do you think I could do a Cajun chicken with it? Is there a gravy or sauce? Looking up Chef Paul right now!
You absolutely can do Cajun chicken – though our favorite way is to inject creole butter into whatever poultry we have and then Cajun seasoning on the skin. A never-fail way to roast or fry a whole bird. We’re in Texas, but get Paul Prudhomme’s seasonings here, too. I’d guess they’re available in LA as well. You can get the recipes for his “magic” seasonings from his books as well as off the shelf in the store. He used to have a show on PBS years ago, so old visoes are sure to be on YouTube. His “fish magic” is unbelievable on just about all seafood.
Oooh!! I have to try it – it’s a MUST! I do have a Cajun chicken that I do but I bet it’s not as special as that one YOU make!
I found Old Bay Seasoning in Queensland’s only Costco – also Montreal Steak Seasoning which I used to bring back from the states. Now I just bring back non-stick alfoil (have never seen it available here in Brisbane).
No! Really?? Costco? I may have to make the trek to Costco to try to find it!!
Hi Nagi! I busted up laughing at the Twinkies ! We hadn’t them in 25 years and a couple of years ago that company went bankrupt so they would be in short supply, we bought a package and we each had one bite and gave the rest to the chickens! Decided we’d wait another 25 years to try them again! Sorry, they are just not a favorite here! 🙂 Love this soup as it’s getting colder here and I’m into comfort food and using up leftovers! Made my seven sides today and two pies – pumpkin and chocolate pecan. Tomorrow I’ll make Cajun turkey breast with Andouille dressing, reheat the sides and bake rolls and have some wine when I’m doing it! I do love holiday cooking!
*Ears perk up* Cajun turkey? Oh my!! I think you just inspired a dish I’m going to make for my blog very soon! Happy Thanksgiving! I can only imagine how wonderful holidays with your cooking would be!! PS We’ll have to agree to disagree about twinkies! Ha ha ha! I think that’s the first food thing we’ve disagreed about!!! 😉
Oh my gosh can’t wait to make this. Everything we love.
This soup sounds yummy! Am impatiently waiting for more cold weather so I can start making soups. It’s supposed to be in the 60Fs tomorrow for Thanksgiving – pretty warm when you’ve got the oven on all day!
Smiling at the idea of you with your food stash at the airport. A friend of mine was craving hot sauce, vanilla and Fig Newtons when she taught English in Madrid!
Ba ha ha! I love hearing about everyone’s weird food cravings from around the world!!!
i go over and go to walmart for things like slowcooker liners, i wish we could get alot of the things here too
Waa! I forgot to get slow cooker liners!!!
I still wet-brine some things, but more and more I dry-brine these days. Much easier. Anyway, love this soup! I never have problems figuring out what to do with leftover turkey, but need to add this to my repertoire. Thanks!
Thanks John!! You know, I have a couple of big racks of pork in the freezer, I’m wondering whether I can dry brine those!!
Oh I bet airport security had a field day after you left trying to figure out what you were all about. I do the same thing. Forget about the clothes just let me look at the ingredients and food. Your soup sounds ah-mazz-ing!!!! We love our soups so that is a definite MAKE. Wish I could send you the ingredients that you crave 🙂 Hugs!
Oh my gosh, they looked at me and said “food blogger? That’s your occupation?” Then I had to explain to them what that meant!! Ba ha ha!!
Hi Nagi
Your pictures looks like you put noodles in the soup, but not listed in ingredients.
Hi Helen! Definitely didn’t add noodles 🙂 Promise. I think that might be the shredded chicken you see? N x
Nagi, I’m surprised that you don’t make your own chili powder. I finally started doing that because there’s only one commercial one I like, and I tend to have to go a long way to find it. The one I like is Fiesta, I think it’s made by Frontier. But I found a recipe on line, which turns out quite well. And you can use the single chili powders in making it. Your plea to Old El Paso makes me realize that I’m spoiled rotten. Living in El Paso, on the border with Mexico, we have multiple brands of canned chilies to choose from… But that’s a good reason to not move to Sydney, much as I like it there. 🙂
Hi Susan! Actually, in all my Mexican(esque) recipes, the flavourings I add are essentially making my own chili powder 🙂 That’s how I get around it. And also, “chili powder” is different all around the world – it’s hotter in India, less hot in Asia and Australia, and completely different in the US. So a recipe can turn out really wrong if I just say “chili powder” in a recipe! So I always use cayenne pepper + onion powder etc as flavourings in Mexican dishes 🙂 I didn’t realise you lived in El Paso!! You ARE spoilt rotten!!! N x
Yes, Nagi, I AM spoiled rotten living in El Paso – it’s the best place I’ve ever lived. Except that I like to eat foods from a wide variety of cuisines and the predominant grocery supplies here fit the predominant population: latino. The chili powder recipe I use has 2.5T ancho chile powder; 1t pasilla chile powder; 1t guajillo chile powder; 1t sweet (Hungarian) paprika, ½ t dried oregano, crumbled; 1 t ground coriander, ½ t each of ground cloves & allspice; 1 t black pepper; 1/2t each garlic powder & onion powder and ¼ t ground cumin. Even if you don’t have all the varieties of dried chiles or ground chile powder, you could probably make it work with one. None of the chiles used in this recipe are particularly hot.
Happy Thanksgiving Susan! I hope you have / (had!) a wonderful day! Thank you for your recipe, I will definitely try it. Adore the spices combo you have used!!
Haha – airport security must have been so tickled by the contents of your bags! My mom used do the same thing – she’d take tons of goodies back – mostly because my dad used to love American Twinkies, ho-hos, dingdongs and the like – so cray cray as my mom made excellent cakes!
BTW – your enchilada soup is so creamy – I can understand why your friend’s teenage son cannot get enough of it! Hope the weather calms down there soon!
Your mum is clearly a LEGEND!!
I usually make my secret recipe Turkey curry with any leftovers. Yes I know I have a food blog and I shouldn’t have secret recipes. But my Turkey curry and my Brownies are the recipes that I wanted to pass on Italian Nonna style. Failed and shared the brownie one!! Maybe I will hold out a little longer with the curry 😉
However, this soup looks so delicious that I think this year, I may have to save a bit of turkey just for this soup! I love enchiladas so this is just about perfect!!!
I am so jealous of all your food ‘souvenirs’. I would have been adding peanut butter M&M’s, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites and Steak sauce to the list!!!!!
Oooh…..ok, I want stalk you for the recipe but can you PLEASE make your secret recipe for me? 😉