Creamy Chicken Poblano Soup
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This Chicken Poblano Soup recipe is a delicious soup that is perfect for any time of the year. Adapted from Joanna Gaines’ Magnolia Table Cookbook, this recipe has layers of flavors with a delightful blend of tender chicken, earthy poblano peppers, and creamy goodness that’s a great addition to your meal rotation.
Whether you’re looking for a quick weeknight meal or a cozy weekend dinner, this recipe for chicken poblano soup is sure to become a new favorite in your home. It’s a beautifully presented soup that uses simple ingredients. With my easy-to-follow instructions, you’ll have a warm and satisfying soup on the table in no time.
On cool days, there’s nothing like a hot bowl of hearty soup. If your family loves soup season as much as mine does, you’ll definitely want to try this Dairy Free Creamy Chicken Soup, my Keto Chicken Noodle Soup, Chicken Booyah, or this Healing Chicken Soup recipe. Serve any of these soups with this Garlic Bread Bruschetta. Yum!
What Are Fresh Poblano Peppers Like And Are They Spicy?
Poblano peppers are a type of green chili pepper, often used in Mexican-style cuisine. They’re said to have originated in Poblano, Mexico, which is where they get their name. They are a mild to medium-heat pepper. The heat goes down even more after cooking. It’s slightly more spicy than a green pepper.
Poblano peppers are a good source of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C, vitamin A, and potassium, so adding them to your soups is a healthy-wise decision. They taste a bit sweet and earthy and aren’t overly spicy. They have a Scoville scale rating of 1000-2000. By comparison, a jalapeno will rank anywhere between 2000 and 8000 Scoville heat units (SHU).
How Do I Choose a Good Poblano Pepper?
When you’re looking at peppers in the store, look for any of these things to know if you’ve got a good pepper in your hands:
- Bright green, shiny flesh
- Even color – no brown spots or markings (or very few)
- Firm texture – the pepper should be firm with no soft spots
- Weight – it should feel heavy for its size
- Stem – the stem should be attached and not be dry or withered
Ingredients
- butter
- White onion
- Celery
- Carrots
- Garlic
- Poblano peppers may swap for green or red bell peppers
- Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
- Cumin
- Thyme
- Chicken broth or chicken stock or vegetable broth
- Boneless skinless chicken breasts or chicken thighs
- Heavy cream or whole milk
- Fresh cilantro
- Tortilla chips and sliced radishes, for garnish
How to Make
STEP ONE: Saute the vegetables. Melt butter in a dutch oven or large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add chopped onions, celery, carrots, garlic, and poblanos. Saute until tender, about 15 minutes. Add the salt, pepper, cumin, and thyme. Saute 4-5 minutes longer. For more heat if you like spicy food, you can add diced jalapeno peppers or red pepper flakes.
STEP TWO: Add the broth and chicken. Add the broth and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low, and add raw chicken. Cover and let simmer for 12-15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Remove the cooked chicken to a plate and shred. Set aside.
STEP THREE: Add the cream and puree. Add heavy cream to the soup pot, and stir until blended. Use an immersion blender to carefully blend the soup until smooth. You can use a blender instead in small batches. If you’re looking for a smoky flavor you can add a jar of enchilada sauce or salsa verde at this time for a flavor boost.
STEP FOUR: Add the chicken and cilantro. Add the tender chunks of chicken back to the pot. Stir in cilantro. Let simmer for an additional 10 minutes to bring the flavors together.
STEP FIVE: Serve. Serve with your favorite toppings such as tortilla strips, sliced radishes, and additional cilantro. More ideas for toppings include sliced green onions, shredded pepper jack cheese, a squeeze of lime juice, or sour cream.
Recipe Tips and Tricks
- Choose fresh produce. This recipe gets the majority of its flavor from the vegetables, so make sure you choose good-quality veggies.
- You can buy a rotisserie chicken and pull the meat off if you prefer. Add it to your soup when the recipe calls to add chicken, but you won’t need to shred it, obviously!
- Don’t skip the garnish! This recipe is delicious, and the garnish makes it look beautiful and impressive.
What Can I Serve With Chicken Poblano Soup?
This soup makes a nice appetizer, but it can definitely qualify as your main dish. If you serve it as an appetizer, it will be nice with these types of main dishes:
- Mexican or Tex-Mex style foods like burritos, burrito bowls, enchiladas, tamales, or any carne asada.
- Chicken dinners like this Sheet Pan Veggies and Chicken
If you’re serving it as the main course, choose a simple side to round out your meal:
- Grilled cheese or other sandwiches
- Quesadillas
- Garlic bread or artisan bread for dipping
- Tortilla chips and salsa
How to Store Leftover Soup
Your leftover soup will taste even better tomorrow, so make sure you sneak a serving out of the pot to eat for lunch! Place the soup (without garnishes) in an airtight container and keep it in the fridge for up to 3 days. Let it cool down all the way before you store it.
Freezing Instructions
You can also freeze this soup but it may separate a bit when it thaws. You can take a whisk to it to mix it back together. Keep it in the freezer for up to one month.
How to Reheat
When you reheat this soup, you might need to add a touch of cream or broth to it. Place it in a pot on the stove and reheat slowly over medium heat until steaming and hot through. You can also microwave it in 30 to 45-second bursts. Stir often!
How to Make Dairy-Free Chicken Poblano Soup
This soup is already gluten-free (check your tortilla chips to be sure), but if you want it to be dairy free, you need to replace the heavy cream with a dairy-free alternative. This recipe calls for 2 cups of heavy cream. To replace it, you can use a mixture of soy milk and silken tofu.
Soy milk is a suitable alternative in this recipe, but it doesn’t provide the thickness unless you mix it with something else. Silken tofu will help thicken the soy milk. Place one cup of each in a blender (or use an immersion blender) and blend until smooth and creamy. Use it in your soup instead of cream and voila! You’ve got dairy-free chicken poblano soup!
FAQs
This soup is just a touch spicy. Almost everyone will find this soup suitable for eating. If you’re concerned about the heat, you can reduce the amount of poblano peppers you use. If you want this soup spicier, you can add cayenne pepper or even some chopped jalapenos.
Yes, you can make this recipe in a slow cooker. Do step one as directed, then transfer your ingredients to a slow cooker. Cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-8 hours or until the chicken is cooked through and the soup is hot. Then follow the recipe from step three onward.
Yes! You can swap it with any pepper you’d like. We recommend bell peppers, banana peppers, or Anaheim peppers.
More Soup Recipes
Chicken Poblano Soup
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 1 large white onion
- 3 stalks celery diced
- 2 large carrots peeled and diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 3 medium poblano peppers seeded and diced
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- Tortilla chips, sliced radishes and additional cilantro for garnish
Instructions
- Saute the vegetables. Melt the butter in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add chopped onions, celery, carrots, garlic, and poblanos. Saute until tender, about 15 minutes. Add the salt, pepper, cumin, and thyme. Saute 5 minutes longer.
- Add the broth and chicken. Add the broth and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low, and add raw chicken. Cover and let simmer for 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Remove the cooked chicken to a plate and shred. Set aside.
- Add the cream and puree. Add heavy cream to the soup pot, and stir until blended. Use an immersion blender to carefully blend the soup until smooth. You can use a blender instead in small batches.
- Add the chicken and cilantro. Add the shredded chicken back to the pot. Stir in cilantro. Let simmer for an additional 10 minutes to bring the flavors together.
- Serve. Serve with tortilla strips, sliced radishes, and additional cilantro.
Video
Notes
- Choose fresh produce. This recipe gets the majority of its flavor from the vegetables, so make sure you choose good quality veggies.
- You can buy a rotisserie chicken and pull the meat off if you prefer. Add it to your soup when the recipe calls to add chicken, but you won’t need to shred it, obviously!
- Don’t skip the garnish! This recipe is delicious, and the garnish makes it look beautiful and impressive.
Nutrition
If you make this recipe or any of my others, we would love to hear your thoughts. You can find us on Facebook and Pinterest!
I made this soup tonight and it was really good. The family decided that it would be as good substituting crab meat for the chicken and with avocado chunks as a garnish. Highly recommend trying this soup.
That is a great idea! I didn’t think of that. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
This looks delicious! But I had a question. It says serving size is 1g, I am hoping that’s an oopsie lol my tummy and tastebuds would be so sad. How many servings come with this soup. Thank you!
Hi Shannon, thanks so much for pointing this out to us! I have updated the correct serving information!
This is not great, I would leave out the chicken or use chicken thighs because they have more flavor. Chicken breasts don’t do well in a soup, they’re dry.
The poblano and vegetable flavors are good.
This was simple to make and so tasty!
This was delicious! I used leftover baked chicken instead of cooking it in the soup. 1 teaspoon of black pepper seemed like a lot, but it added a nice kick.
It was amazing!!The poblano flavor was delicate but definitely pleasant. My whole family loved it.
Oh delicious! I made for a group at work, but found out one of the girls is vegetarian. So I substituted chicken broth for vegetable broth. Substituted Morning Star chick n strips for chicken. Substituted fat free half n half for heavy whipping cream.
It is actually good! Being a meat eater, I really did not mind the vegan strips by Morning star. This is a really good soup.