Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Turkey Taco Soup

Turkey Taco Soup
Taco Tuesday.

It's what's we do on Tuesdays. It's catchy and makes menu planning a breeze! My husband doesn't eat red meat, so I make our taco meat with ground turkey. Normally I just brown the turkey in a little bit of butter, add some homemade taco seasoning, cornstarch, and 3/4 cups of water when the meat is cooked. Let it simmer for 5-10 minutes and turn on low until it's time for dinner. 

My family loves simplicity. I hate that. I love crazy things. That was the best part about living alone and about when my husband was deployed. I could get creative as I wanted, and no one would complain! Well except for my daughter. But I always made sure to have a toned down version, or keep it separate until plating.

If I had my way, taco meat would have onions, peppers, cilantro, and maybe some cheese in it. Every.time. But I can't get away with that. My daughter hates onions. Will only eat them if she can't see them. My husband hates peppers.

Well, yesterday I didn't care what they thought. I wanted some taco soup. I have another obsession...I love soup. I could eat soup and chips and dip all the time. I always try and make traditional meals into soup. It's not just me, my entire extended family. We all love soup. We just had a Facebook reunion post about it. All talking about the soups we made that weekend for meals that week.


Normally I would have made chicken tortilla soup, but I had already thawed ground turkey. So I sauteed some onions first, because onions are a core ingredient in soups..my daughter can deal...



Then I added the ground turkey once the onions were nice and translucent. Break up the meat until cooked through.

Add the taco seasoning and mix in well. Turn the heat down to medium low. I would also have added the red peppers here, but I forgot to until the end.

Then add the cilantro and the cheese. Mix well and be careful not to burn the cheese. It doesn't take long to melt, so continue to stir until it's all melted.

I know you're just seeing the peppers here for the first time, but really add them with the spices (I just forgot about them). But here you should add the chicken broth and half and half. I put mine the crock pot after this because I made dinner at 9 am....But you could serve this immediately if you want to! Or let it simmer really low for a little bit.


 Turkey Taco Soup 

4-6 servings

Ingredients
1 lb of ground turkey
1 small yellow onion diced
1/2 red bell pepper diced
Handful of chopped cilantro
2 tbsp of taco seasoning (I'll post my recipe next week)
2 oz of Monterey cheese cubed
2 oz of American cheese cubed
1/2 cup of half and half
4-6 chicken broth (depending on how "soupy" you like it)
1-2 tbsp of fat, I used butter

Saute onions in butter/oil/fat until translucent.Add meat, brown and break up with spoon until cooked through (medium high heat). Add peppers and taco seasoning. Turn heat to low, add cheese and cilantro and melt, stirring constantly. Add chicken broth and half and half. Simmer on low for 5-10 minutes. Serve with avocado, sour cream, cheese, tortilla chips.


**Oh and I just wanted to say, I'm not sure what format I like. This might be it, but I know I hated looking at blogs with the step by step instructions with pictures, because I had to scroll while cooking. But I also loved the pictures so I could see what I was supposed to be doing. So bear with me while I try and figure out the format I like. And please feel free to give me some input!!

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