Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe 445

Steps:

• Place chicken, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, onion, green chiles, and garlic into a slow cooker. Pour in water and chicken broth, and season with cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Stir in corn and cilantro. Cover, and cook on Low setting for 6 to 8 hours or on High setting for 3 to 4 hours.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
• Lightly brush both sides of tortillas with oil. Cut tortillas into strips, then spread on a baking sheet.
• Bake in preheated oven until crisp, about 10 to 15 minutes. To serve, sprinkle tortilla strips over soup.

Steps:

• Heat a broiler with a rack 4 to 6 inches from the heat source. Line a sheet pan with foil, add the plum tomatoes and arrange them in an even layer, cut sides up. Add the onions, cherry tomatoes, garlic and jalapeños, distributing them evenly, and broil for 15 minutes, checking and rotating the pan every 5 minutes to make sure the vegetables are charring and blistering evenly. (The vegetables should be blackened in spots, slumped and sizzling. Many of the cherry tomatoes will have burst.)
• Discard the garlic skins, then roughly chop the onion, garlic, jalapeños and plum tomatoes, transferring them to a 5- to 8-quart slow cooker. Transfer the cherry tomatoes and any juices to a separate bowl and refrigerate.
• Stir the oil, tomato paste, cumin, oregano, salt, onion powder and garlic powder into the slow cooker, followed by the chicken broth, carrots and chicken thighs. Cover and cook on low for 5 hours.
• Before serving, fold the avocado into the cherry tomatoes; season with a pinch of salt and the juice of half the lime.
• In the slow cooker, coarsely shred the chicken with two forks. Add the juice of the remaining lime half, and season to taste with salt.
• Serve the soup in bowls topped with crushed tortilla chips and spoonfuls of the tomato-avocado salsa. Pass hot sauce, queso fresco and/or cilantro at the table, if desired.