Slow Cooker Southwestern Chicken Soup

Late January, and the winter has settled into itself — that deep cold that is not dramatic but is just relentless, the kind where you stop fighting it and start planning around it. I wear an extra layer in my classroom, where the radiators are ancient and believe strongly in independence. My students wear their coats inside, which I have stopped commenting on because the coats keep them from shivering, and shivering is incompatible with literary analysis. I am teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God to the juniors this week. Hurston. The students did not expect to love it. Several of them are, visibly, loving it. This is one of the great pleasures of the job.

Jennifer is visibly pregnant now — David called to tell me that she is in her third trimester and doing well, and that they are thinking about names. They are not telling us the name yet, which is a modern custom I find baffling — my mother knew my name before I was born, she had opinions about it — but I respect the impulse to hold something private before it becomes public. I told David to tell Jennifer I am available for cooking should she need anything brought to White Plains. David said, "She knows, Mom." I said, "I know she knows. Tell her anyway."

Marvin and I watched a documentary about jazz this week — a long, beautiful Ken Burns thing that we had meant to watch for years and never gotten to. Marvin played piano as a young man, badly, he says, though I have heard recordings that suggest "badly" is self-deprecating to the point of dishonesty. He identified every musician on screen before the caption appeared. He was right every time. The jazz is in there, I thought, the way the movies are in there, the way the prayers are. Some things live in a different house, and the disease has not yet found the key to that house.

I made matzo ball soup this week even though Passover is months away, because the cold warranted it and because I wanted to make something that required technique — the matzo balls are the thing, fluffy not dense, which requires the right ratio of matzo meal to schmaltz to egg and a specific resting time in the refrigerator before cooking. My mother was adamant about the fluffy. She had the position that dense matzo balls were a character failing. I have inherited this position completely. The soup was good. The balls were fluffy. Some standards do not yield.

There was no matzo meal in the house on the day I needed it most — and the cold, as I have described, does not wait. I turned instead to the slow cooker and a chicken soup with a southwestern bent: smoky, bright with green chiles, deeply satisfying in the way that soups cooked low and long always are. It is not the soup of my mother’s kitchen, but it asked something of me — a little attention in the morning, a little patience through the afternoon — and on a week when Marvin and I were watching old jazz and holding things quietly, patience felt like the right ingredient.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 6–8 hours (low) | Total Time: 6 hours 15 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 can (15 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (15 oz) whole kernel corn, drained
1 can (10 oz) diced tomatoes with green chiles (such as Ro-Tel), undrained
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can (4 oz) chopped green chiles
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and black pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lime
Optional toppings: sour cream, shredded cheddar, sliced avocado, fresh cilantro, tortilla strips

Instructions

Layer the slow cooker. Place chicken breasts in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. Add diced onion and minced garlic on top.
Add the remaining ingredients. Pour in black beans, corn, both cans of tomatoes (with their liquid), green chiles, and chicken broth. Sprinkle in cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, oregano, salt, and pepper. Stir gently to combine.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 6–8 hours or on HIGH for 3–4 hours, until chicken is fully cooked and tender enough to shred.
Shred the chicken. Remove chicken breasts with tongs and shred using two forks. Return shredded chicken to the slow cooker and stir to incorporate.
Finish with lime. Squeeze lime juice into the soup and stir. Taste and adjust seasoning with additional salt, pepper, or cumin as needed.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with your choice of sour cream, shredded cheddar, avocado, fresh cilantro, or tortilla strips.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow Cooker Southwestern Chicken Soup — When the Cold Demands Something Real