This Taco Soup is one of my family’s FAVORITE meals! I love this recipe because it’s super easy–make it on the stovetop or toss everything into your crockpot and let it simmer all day. Plus, it uses up a whole bunch of refrigerator and pantry staples: canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, corn, taco seasoning (you can even make your own in bulk!), and kidney beans. Oh, and a fresh onion and some fresh garlic. It’s cheap, packed with protein, and feeds a smally army. In fact, my oldest son, who has always been a die-hard chili fan (this Easy Weeknight Chili and Sara’s Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili are two of his favorite meals) declared this his favorite. So. That’s saying a lot.
My favorite topping is a big spoonful or two of Pico de Gallo. It adds a lot of fresh flavor with almost no extra calories. I also love adding some sour cream, shredded cheese, and some crushed tortilla chips (or, if you’re feeling fancy, you could fry your own tortilla strips.
Ingredients Needed
- Lean ground beef
- Diced onion
- Fresh garlic
- Taco seasoning packet – Or make your own Taco Seasoning and use about 1/4 cup.
- Diced canned tomatoes
- Tomato sauce
- Canned kidney beans
- Canned or frozen corn
- Desired toppings
- Pico de gallo
- Sour cream
- Shredded cheese
- Crushed tortilla chips
- Tortilla strips
- Guacamole
How to Make Taco Soup
Stovetop
- Heat 1-2 teaspoons olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. When hot, brown the ground beef with the onion and garlic. When almost brown, add the taco seasoning and 1 cup water. Add the remaining ingredients, including the remaining 2 cups water, bring to a medium boil, then, cover and reduce heat. Simmer for at least 15 minutes. Serve with desired toppings.
Slow Cooker
- Heat 1-2 teaspoons olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. When hot, brown the ground beef with the onion and garlic. When almost brown, add the taco seasoning and 1 cup water. Transfer to slow cooker, add remaining ingredients and cook on low for about 6-8 hours.
Storing and Other Tips
- Store cooled soup in an airtight container in the refrigerator and consume within 3-4 days for best results.
- Freezer Instructions: Because of all the canned goods, you’ll just take up a lot of space in your freezer if you freeze the whole recipe. However, after it’s been cooked, the leftovers freeze extremely well. You can even try freezing individual portions in 12-oz. freezer-safe containers and then reheating them for a quick lunch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ground turkey would work well, just avoid the extra lean variety, as it tends to be dry and lacks flavor. You could also use rotisserie chicken.
If you follow the slow cooker instructions you can toss everything together in the morning and come home to dinner already made! Leftovers also taste great from the fridge or freezer, so feel free to make it one day and enjoy it later.
Taco Soup
Equipment
- 1 Slow Cooker optional, you can also cook this just fine on the stovetop
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean or extra-lean ground beef
- 1 onion chopped
- 4-5 cloves garlic minced
- 1 1.25- ounce packet taco seasoning or make your own and use about 1/4 cup
- 3 cups water divided
- 2 28- ounce cans diced tomatoes
- 1 15- ounce can tomato sauce
- 2 15- ounce cans kidney beans rinsed and drained
- 1 can corn, drained or 1 cup frozen corn
Toppings
- Pico de Gallo, sour cream, shredded cheese, crushed tortilla chips, tortilla strips, guacamole
Instructions
Stovetop
- Heat 1-2 teaspoons olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. When hot, brown the ground beef with the onion and garlic. When almost brown, add the taco seasoning and 1 cup water. Add the remaining ingredients, including the remaining 2 cups water, bring to a medium boil, then, cover and reduce heat. Simmer for at least 15 minutes. Serve with desired toppings.
Slow Cooker
- Heat 1-2 teaspoons olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. When hot, brown the ground beef with the onion and garlic. When almost brown, add the taco seasoning and 1 cup water. Place remaining ingredients into a slow cooker and cook on low for about 6-8 hours.
- See notes for Freezer Instructions.
Notes
- Store cooled soup in an airtight container in the refrigerator and consume within 3-4 days for best results.Â
- Freezer Instructions: Because of all the canned goods, you’ll just take up a lot of space in your freezer if you freeze the whole recipe. However, after it’s been cooked, the leftovers freeze extremely well. You can even try freezing individual portions in 12-oz. freezer-safe containers and then reheating them for a quick lunch.
- Nutritional information was calculated without the use of any toppings.
Questions & Reviews
Made this soup tonight and it was delicious! This recipe is cheap to buy for and makes a ton of servings! I froze half of it and def will be making this again!
LOVE LOVE LOVE this soup, coming from a non-tomato lover – the only changes I made was to cut the cans of diced tomatoes to 1 and I used petite diced (I did make once before using 2 cans and found there were just too many tomatoes), and I used 1 envelope taco mix and probably another 1/4 of another. DELICIOUS! 🙂 Thank you!!
I liked your comment at the top about how you made this all the time as newly weds. We’re not quite married yet (this June!) but we moved together for a new job one of us had (which turns out harder to plan a wedding from out of town with my church between him taking membership classes and planning the decoration but anyway) and we are seriously broker than broke. It’s a luxury to order pizza. BUT I’m trying to get into doing more slow cooker type meals and freeze them (my mom recently bought me one 🙂 ) and this one looks great! But is there a way to unthaw soups I don’t know of? Last time we tried our vegetable soup tomato base like somehow separated from the water and our noodles were hard and crusty and I hate to waste food. Any ideas?
This is a great soup to add in a little quinoa. It isn’t really noticed but adds in a healthy grain!
I added a can of refried beans. It helped to thicken it.
What is the serving size for 4 points?
made this last night for dinner- so delicious…plenty of leftovers…yummy frozen meals now. thanks again for another great meal 🙂
I would love to see more recipes with WW points, Thank you!
Always looking for new ideas for WW menues. We have a small group up where I live that gets together each week to help each other out loosing weight. I will share.
I have used the Taco Soup recipe…it’s great! I have revamped it at times and used veggies, instead of beans, and it’s very tasty! It’s an idea for something else to try.