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This Mexican Chicken Lime Soup Recipe is bright, zesty and soul warming with feel good ingredients all simmered together in flavorful tomato broth and a fresh squeeze of lime for zest. Often known as Sopa de Lima in the Yucatán region, this soup is light yet hearty, making it ideal for weeknight dinners or a cozy weekend meal.
This soup is easy, full of pantry staples and protein loaded with lots of shredded seasoned chicken. It keeps well in the fridge or freezer so feel free to double the batch and make it for meal prep.
Tips To Know Before Making Mexican Chicken Lime Soup
- Don’t overcook the chicken! It’s always best to have a digital meat thermometer. This will help keep the chicken nice and juicy. It will cook a bit in the broth as well.
- Season well. Always taste as you go, you may want more spice or more salt!
- If you want to add more veggies please do, chopped celery, mushrooms or any canned beans of choice will work great
- Make it more hearty. Add cooked rice to this soup if you want, it pairs wonderful with it.
- Pair it with extra lime wedges, it’s a beautiful garnish and makes the soup just a touch more lime flavored.
Ingredient Notes
All other ingredients and measurements can be found in the recipe card towards the bottom of this post.
- Chicken Breasts. Use chicken breasts and make them from scratch or you can use shredded rotisserie chicken to cut back on time. Both are delicious.
- Salsa Verde. Use any brand and type you like, this adds huge flavor to the broth and does a lot of heavy lifting.
- Chicken Broth.
- Canned Beans. Use any canned bean of choice. Traditionally the soup uses white or pinto beans but black beans are great as well.
- Veggies. Carrots, onion, jalapeños or bell peppers if you have picky eaters.
- Flavor Blasters. Canned Tomatoes and lots of seasonings along with fresh limes really boosts the broth for this heart warming soup.
Steps To Make This Recipe
Ready to cook up this Mexican Lime Chicken Soup? Let me walk you through the recipe. For your convenience, there is a full ingredient list and detailed instructions in the printable recipe card below.
- Season and cook the chicken breasts.
- Shred the chicken up, set aside.
- Sauté the veggies. Always start with the onions and the carrots, they can cook down the longest. Add the garlic last to prevent burning.
- Deglaze the pan an add the soup stock. This makes the broth so tasty, it adds all the flavors from the chicken and veggies into the broth.
- Add the chicken back in, add all other ingredients and simmer.
- Serve and garnish, enjoy! I garnish with cilantro, limes, and a little cotija (totally optional)
Mexican Chicken Lime Soup Recipe Pairings
This soup is filling and wonderful on it’s own, however I do have a few favorite side dishes to pair with it.
Other Soup Recipes I love
Mexican Chicken Lime Soup Recipe
This Mexican Chicken Lime Soup Recipe is bright, zesty and soul warming with feel good ingredients all simmered together in flavorful tomato broth and a fresh squeeze of lime for zest.
Equipment
- large soup pot
Ingredients
Seasoned Chicken
- 1-1½ lb chicken breasts , *if cooking your own
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1½ tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp salt
- 1½ tsp cumin
- 1½ tsp smoked paprika, or regular paprika
Mexican Lime Soup
- 1 tsp olive oil
- ½ onion, diced
- 2 carrots, diced
- 2 Jalapeños, seeded and sliced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 15 oz can pinto beans, drained and rinsed, or black beans
- 6 cups chicken broth, low sodium
- 1 10 oz can diced tomatoes , with juices
- ⅓ cup salsa verde, any brand of choice
- 2 limes
- cilantro for garnish , optional
Optional Toppings
- avocado slices
- cotija cheese, crumbled
Instructions
- Mix the seasonings. Mix them all together in a small bowl.
- Cook the chicken. Rub the chicken breasts on both sides with half of the seasonings, the other half will be added later. Heat the oil in the soup pan, brown the chicken for 7-9 minutes on each side or until the chicken in 165º internally.
- Let the chicken rest for a bit and then shred it for the soup.
Mexican Chicken Lime Soup
- Sauté the veggies. In the same pot that you cooked the chicken, add more olive oil to the pot. Add the diced onions and carrots. Sauté for about 5 minutes or until the onions are fragrant and carrots soften.
- add in the minced garlic, jalapeños and leftover seasonings. Let the seasoning bloom for just 1 minutes.
- Add the broth into the pot. Next, add the beans, tomatoes and salsa verde. Bring everything to s low simmer.
- Once everything is simmering, add the shredded chicken followed by 1 squeezed lime. The other will be used for garnish.
- Take the soup off the heat, serve and garnish with cilantro, sliced limes and optional toppings. Enjoy.
Notes
- Don’t overcook the chicken! It’s always best to have a digital meat thermometer. This will help keep the chicken nice and juicy. It will cook a bit in the broth as well.
- Season well. Always taste as you go, you may want more spice or more salt!
- If you want to add more veggies please do, chopped celery, mushrooms or any canned beans of choice will work great
- Make it more hearty. Add cooked rice to this soup if you want, it pairs wonderful with it.
- Pair it with extra lime wedges, it’s a beautiful garnish and makes the soup just a touch more lime flavored.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. You can freeze these for up to 2 months.
Nutrition
Serving: 1.5cup of soup | Calories: 323kcal | Carbohydrates: 16g | Protein: 44g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 0.02g | Cholesterol: 109mg | Sodium: 1046mg | Potassium: 1194mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 5666IU | Vitamin C: 17mg | Calcium: 63mg | Iron: 2mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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We love this recipe! I hope you do too.