White Bean Chicken Soup

I am always looking for new, tasty, healthy, inexpensive meals. Life was so much easier when I could just swing through the drive-thru and pick up dinner on the way home from work.

Easier, but expensive and so unhealthy.

Eating well takes a lot of time and planning, but it's worth it. I am a firm believer that you get good out when you put good in. I have definitely found it to be true the past few months.

I love soup, and fall is the perfect time for it so I have been looking for good recipes.

I love soups with a lot of protein - ones that have staying power. No one likes to be hungry an hour after a meal. I found a recipe last weekend that is technically chili, but it felt more like a soup to me.

Go here for the original recipe. I changed it a little and it was good. Not life changing or anything, but pretty tasty.

I didn't make it in the crockpot because a friend borrowed mine and I couldn't be bothered to walk 2 blocks to get it. Mostly because I didn't get ready at all the whole weekend because I didn't plan to leave the house for 2 whole days - and I didn't.

So, I boiled a pound of chicken. The original recipe says to use bone-in chicken but I just used boneless, skinless chicken breasts (because that's what I had and I didn't want to go to the store). The chicken was frozen, so I boiled it for 30 minutes (I added chicken bullion to add flavor) then shredded it and put it back in the broth.

In a separate pan, I sauteed 3 tsps of garlic (the original recipe calls for 4 tsps, but I felt like that was too much - 3 tsps was just right) with a cup of diced onion to bring out the flavor and added it to the pot of chicken. (Here's a little something you probably don't know about me: I hate cutting onions. I hate it that my hands smell bad for days after any contact with an onion so I buy the pre-chopped frozen onions. I actually have 'onion gloves' that I use in the event that I absolutely cannot avoid cutting an onion. I know, I'm weird).

I rinsed 2 cans of white kidney beans and added them, along with a 2 small cans of green chilies. I didn't use cumin because I don't really like it. There was enough flavor from the garlic, onion and chilies.

I forgot to take a cup of beans out and blend it to make the soup a little thicker but I thought it tasted fine without that step.

This is pretty simple to make and tastes pretty good. I froze half of it to have later because I'm pretty sure I would get sick of it (or anything) after eating it everyday for a whole week. This recipe makes about 8 servings.

Enjoy!