Taco Soup

Disclaimer: No one in my house liked this soup very much at first. It was a little bland all by itself. Then we added tortilla chips, sour cream, and cheese and magically we all loved it. So, if anyone has a taco soup recipe that's good without all the fat, please post it because I'm still on the lookout (and also let me know if you think of other vegetables I could add to it.) But even with the chips and cheese it's within an acceptable calorie limit and it's a super, super filling lunch.

Ingredients:

1 lb. dried pinto beans

20 oz browned ground turkey

3 diced tomatoes

1 can of corn

About 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

1 packet of taco seasoning (I think I will use 2 packets next time)

Salt and pepper to taste

I made this in the crockpot. I usually shy away from dried beans, but I've been trying to use them more lately because they're so much cheaper. And I figured that if I'm making something in the crockpot, I'm obviously in no hurry. So, I rinsed the beans, then put them in the crockpot with water. I covered the crockpot (left it off) and let them soak there for about 8 hours. Then I dumped them back in the strainer, gave them a quick rinse and put them back in the crockpot. Pretty painless.

I threw everything in the crockpot with about 6 cups of water and cooked on low for 7 hours.

Like I said, it wasn't amazing straight out of the pot. We had to add extra salt, which we hardly ever do. But, if you do eat it by itself, it's a very healthy dish.

Per serving you get:

184 calories,

5.1 grams of fat, only 1.3 of those being saturated fat,

20.7 grams carbohydrate

5.6 grams of fiber

14.6 grams of protein.

This made a massive amount. We got 12 bowls out of it, (I'm not sure how many cups per bowl. I'm guessing about 1 and a half) so you may want to half the recipe. I froze half of what I made.

If you want to be good, this is a nice, high protien, low-calorie soup. But, if you want it to be delicous, add a small amount of cheddar (about 1/8 cup), 3 or 4 tortilla chips, and a couple tablespoons of low fat sour cream (I added 4 to mine...I love sour cream). All the extras added a little more than 200 calories to it (yikes!), but for me it was worth it for a delicous 400 calorie lunch that left me absolutely stuffed.

This soup has already had a few bites taken out of it. When I realized it tasted good I yelled at Devan to stop eating.