Gluten Free Living – 2014

Taco Soup is a spectacular Tex-Mex Soup you are sure to love, especially if you like a little bit of spice in your soups. This recipe is also incredibly E-A-S-Y, too. You brown up ground beef and onions and add several cans of veggies, chicken broth, a packet of Ranch dressing mix and taco seasoning and that’s it. The flavors are really wonderful.

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I made this a week ago for a dinner party I was hosting and I had to cancel because John and I both had colds. So I froze the soup and served it last night instead. It was cleaned down to the dregs. One of the teenagers we had over had three bowls! You could say this soup was extremely well-received.

Several years ago I frequently visited a friend for lunch. We would hang out and talk for hours and shared a lot of recipes. Debbie was the soup queen. She always made some great soup recipe for our lunches together and this was one of them.

I had never really been much of a soup person until that time–especially spicy soups. I could eat spicy food, but for whatever reason, I never enjoyed spicy soups or chilies. That changed after eating some of Debbie’s great cooking.

I have made this recipe several times in the past eight or nine years or so since I initially received the recipe. It’s always been a crowd pleaser whenever I’ve made it, but it’s also one of those quick and easy recipes that you don’t have to mess with a lot. I do have a Homemade Ranch Dressing Mix and a Homemade Taco Seasoning that you can use if you want to make this a cleaner recipe without all the preservatives from the packets. Making these from scratch will add about 5 minutes to your cooking time if you have the ingredients already on hand.

You basically just heat everything through. You can keep in warm in the crockpot, or for that matter after frying the onions and ground beef, you can toss everything in the crockpot and warm it up in an hour or two. It’s truly one of those “Fix-It and Forget-About-It” recipes!

If you need a quick dinner recipe that you can spend ten minutes of cooking time and then throw everything in the crockpot for an hour or two then this is the recipe for you! Or, if you want a recipe done in less than half an hour’s time by doing it all on the stove top, then this is an excellent option.

I made Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay Biscuits to go with this last week when we had to cancel. Yesterday, I served it with Paula Deen’s wonderful Sweet Potato Biscuits, and they turned out fabulous. This is a great recipe for holidays like New Year’s Day, or special game days like the Super Bowl, because it’s so quick and easy make and you are able to enjoy the festivities rather than spending all your time in the kitchen! Try it and enjoy it!

Taco Soup is EASY, EASY, EASY! It’s a great 30-minute meal when you’re short on time.

After browning beef and onions the entire mixture can then be placed in your crockpot for a couple of hours to heat through, or simply heat through on stove top for 10-15 minutes. The dry ranch dressing mix and taco seasoning provide such warm, savory flavors to this tasty soup.

Taco Soup is a great recipe to whip up quickly on cold winter nights when you’re craving something hot.

This is a great recipe to fix for tailgating parties or when you have company over to watch sporting events on television. It’s so easily made that you can fix it and forget about it.

Here’s what I did.

I used these ingredients. I purchase ground beef in bulk when it’s on sale and pack it down for the freezer. You can also substitute a Homemade Ranch Dressing Mix and a Homemade Taco seasoning if you prefer.

Brown beef and onions, drain. At this point you can keep everything in your large Dutch oven, or transfer beef and onions to a crockpot and add all the ingredients to the crockpot, if desired.

Add kidney and pinto beans, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes with green chilies and corn.

Add taco seasoning and ranch dressing mix.

Add chicken broth.

Stir ingredients to combine and heat through – maybe 10-15 minutes.

Taco Soup is great served with Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay Biscuits! While Taco Soup is called a soup, it’s probably more accurately a chili recipe.

We love the taste of this amazing soup recipe, and I love the convenience of having something I can freeze and put in the crockpot at a later time to reheat and it still tastes marvelous! 

Every spoonful of Taco Soup was mouthwateringly delicious!

Here’s the recipe.

TACO SOUP

(Recipe adapted from Debbie Nickel when we attended Hillcrest Baptist Church, Cedar Hill, TX)

Taco Soup is a great recipe for game days and even holidays like New Year’s or Martin Luther King Day when the weather is cold and you want something to warm you up.

If you’re looking for quick and easy, this recipe is it! Taco Soup has nice spicy flavors to it from the Taco Seasoning packet and the Ranch seasoning packet. If you don’t have taco seasoning packets on hand, try a batch of my Homemade Taco Seasoning or my Homemade Ranch Dressing mix. They work great too.

You may also enjoy these delicious recipes!

Taco Lasagna

Taco Bake

Mexican Taco Salad