Not your grandma’s bland cabbage diet soup, this Chicken and Cabbage Soup is a vibrant, satisfying bowl of soup packed with tender chicken breast, healthy cabbage and vegetables in a bold savory broth with a kick of heat. It’s a perfect way to warm up, eat well, and enjoy this Classic Mexican Southwestern dish in your comfort food rotation.
Most of my Southwestern chicken soup recipes are pretty healthy, but this Cabbage and Chicken Soup is packed with more nutritious veggies than my Chicken Soup With Rotisserie Chicken, and my Chicken Poblano Soup.
Quick Look: Chicken and Cabbage Soup
- 🧁 Serves: 6
- ⭐ Features: Fresh ✓ Healthy ✓Slight “heat” ✓ No noodles – low carb
- ⌛️ Prep Time: 20 minutes
- 🍪 Cook Time: 60 minutes
- 🕑 Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- 👩🍳 Skill Level: Beginner
- 🏆 Why make THIS version? A perfect way to warm up, eat well, and enjoy this Southwestern soup dish in your comfort food rotation.
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What Makes This Soup So Interesting?
This spicy Chicken and Cabbage soup is loaded with so many vegetables, it will remind you of grandma’s. Almost. Adding roasted chile peppers brings some spicy excitement to this classic comfort food.
This recipe is easy enough for a beginning cook and interesting enough for the gourmet home cook. It’s a healthy soup for anyone looking for some jazzed-up clean eating healthy dinners.
Flavor Profile and Benefits
- Comfort Food: Just one bite is all it takes to remind you of why a chicken soup is one of the most comforting soups one can make. We’ll sear the chicken first to create Maillard Reaction. It’s that crusty, toasty flavor that elevates anything from steaks, like my Baseball Steak recipe to a simple slice of toasted bread.
- Rich Broth: An easy rich flavored broth is made by simply simmering purchased chicken broth with Mexican oregano, bay leaves and Chinese Mustard.
- Spicy Heat: No boring chicken cabbage soup here. New Mexico green chile peppers bring some heat along with a surprise unique hot flavor using Chinese Hot Mustard.
- Healthy Veggies: Chock full of healthy vegetables and hearty with cubed potatoes.
- Why Cabbage In Soup? It’s hearty texture adds bulk, it’s low in calories, impressive with nutrients, and budget friendly, it’s a perfect addition to brothy soups.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Broth: We’ll make a deep flavored base for this soup using chicken broth, Mexican oregano, bay leaves and Chinese mustard for some pungent, spicy heat.
- Chicken Breast: Seared golden for Maillard reaction flavor, then cubed and added to the soup.
- Cabbage: Regular green cabbage sliced thin or chopped.
- Starchy Vegetables: Cubed potatoes make this a hearty soup and corn brings a Southwestern feel. Use a russet potato, or Yukon Gold. Yukon gold potatoes don’t need to be peeled, bringing more vitamins, minerals and fiber.
- Chile Peppers: I used roasted Hatch Chile Peppers with a medium heat level. My article Chili vs Chili will give you a better idea about all things chile peppers and their heat levels.
- Basic Soup Veggies: Onions, carrots, bell pepper and garlic are basic soup ingredients, somewhat of a Mirepoix.
Ingredient Variations
- Chile Peppers: You can control the heat of this soup by using roasted Poblano Peppers, which can be milder than New Mexico Hatch chile peppers. The beauty of cooking with chile peppers, is that you can choose mild, medium and hot chile peppers to customize to your heat tolerance.
- Chinese Mustard: Please don’t skip using this, as it brings a unique zingy flavor of heat. You can substitute with Chinese mustard powder, or even regular mustard powder. All of these options have an interesting heat element.
- Cabbage: I used regular green cabbage, but feel free to use Napa Cabbage or Savoy Cabbage. They’ll work well in this soup.
- Pro Tip: Corn: When shopping for this recipe, I had planned to pick up a bag of regular frozen sweet corn. Frozen corn, rather than canned corn, is packaged at the peak of freshness. However, I found a package of Birds’s Eye Fire Roasted corn. I think it’s smoky flavor is a perfect choice for this soup if you can find it. You can also use canned corn.
- Chicken: Swap out cooked chicken for cooked turkey. A great way to use up left over Boneless Turkey Roast. Ground chicken or ground turkey also works well here.
How To Make Chicken and Cabbage Soup
- Step 1: Heat two tablespoons of neutral oil in a heavy skillet. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Sear the chicken breasts until golden on each side.
- Step 2: Remove to a plate, let cool, then cut across the grain and then into bite sized pieces. Set aside.
Pro Tip: Don't skip searing the meat. This is a crucial step in getting the most flavor out of this meal. Searing creates what is technically called Maillard reaction. Maillard reaction is the process where a crust is created. Simply stated, it's responsible for the complex flavors and aroma that makes bread taste toasty, and a grilled or pan seared seared steak, like my recipe for Denver Steak, taste charred. It's a technique that brings science to your cooking skills.
- Step 3: Add the 8 cups of chicken broth to a large soup pot. Add Mexican oregano, bay leaves, and the Chinese mustard. Let the broth simmer over very low heat, uncovered for 30 minutes
- Step 4: Add another two tablespoons oil to the fry pan and add the chopped onion, bell pepper and carrot. Saute, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant: 30 seconds to one minute.
- Step 5: Add the potatoes and cook, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes.
- Step 6: Add the vegetables, chicken, corn, chopped roasted chile peppers and cabbage to the broth. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
- Step 7: To serve, ladle some soup into your favorite soup bowls. I prefer shallow white bowls for presentation. The vegetables stay visible and don’t sink to the bottom. Add some grated cheese to the top, chopped cilantro and serve with tortilla chips for crushing. Offering a squeeze of lime will brighten the flavors.
Tips For Success
- Chunky Vegetables: For this soup, I like to keep the vegetable chop size a little larger than a regular Mirepoix, like I do for my Crock Pot Ham and Beans recipe. Since this is billed as a chicken soup with vegetables, the vegetables play a bigger role than just adding flavor.
- Mushy Cabbage: How To Keep Cabbage From Getting Mushy In Soup: Cabbage is a delicate vegetable, especially when thin sliced or shredded. Follow the rules for adding this later in the cook time steps.
- Delicate Simmer: Avoid bringing this cabbage and chicken soup to a rolling boil. An aggressive boil will cause the vegetables to become too soft and the chicken to overcook.
- Acid: The flavor in a a brothy soup is always elevated by some type of acid. Vinegar is a common enhancer, and for this Southwest version, lime juice works very well.
Serving Suggestions and Pairings
- Sides: For a heartier meal, serve this soup over oven baked rice. A loaf of crusty bread is always welcome. A small bowl of Mexican Quick Pickled Red Onions would be a nice treat.
- Wine: Serve an off dry white wine like Riesling. A Pinot Noir won’t clash with the spice and a peppery, rich, fruity Zinfandel will match the bold flavor of this soup.
Storage and Reheating
- Refrigerator: Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- Freezer: I’m not a fan of freezing these types of soups because it will compromise the texture of the vegetables and especially the cabbage. I have frozen cabbage style soups and am simply not pleased with the soup once it’s thawed and reheated.
- Reheating: Reheat individual servings in the microwave. The 50% power feature is your best friend. Place soup in a microwave safe bowl. For a gentle, no-splatter method, reheat in 30 second increments at 50% power until hot. You can also reheat in a sauce pan, over low heat on the stovetop.
Chicken and Cabbage Soup FAQ’s
Technically you can, however, I’m not a fan of freezing cabbage. It certainly will compromise the texture.
Short answer: Green Cabbage. It’s leaves are sturdier. You can use looser leaf varieties like Napa and Savoy knowing that you’ll need to adjust cooking time, as they’ll soften quicker. Red cabbage has sturdy leaves, but will color the soup red. Save red cabbage for recipes like Rode Kool or Braised Beef Tacos.
So ditch the dull dinners and spice up your weeknight routine with this Mexican Chicken and Cabbage Soup. Healthy soup never tasted so good.
More Spicy Southwestern Chicken Soups
I consider soups to be my specialty, so don’t miss my soup category. You’ll find lots of recipes, including one of the most popular on my site for Taco Soup with Ranch Dressing. Let your can opener do the work for the 7-can easy recipe that will feed that hungry family and with lots of leftovers.
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Spicy Chicken and Cabbage Soup
Ingredients
- 1 pound Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
- 4 Tablespoons Neutral oil – Divided canola, vegetable or peanut oil work well here.
- For The Broth
- 8 Cups Chicken Broth
- 2 Bay Leaves
- 1 Tablespoon Mexican Oregano
- 1 teaspoon Freshly ground black pepper
- ¾ teaspoon Chinese Hot Mustard
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
- For The Soup
- 2 Tablespoons Olive oil
- ½ large Sweet onion chopped
- ½ large Green Bell Pepper chopped
- 6 cloves Garlic minced
- 1 large Carrot peeled and chopped
- 1 large Potato Cut into cubes
- 1 Cup Frozen Corn or fresh corn removed from cob
- ½ Cup New Mexico Chile Peppers roasted, peeled, seeds, veins and stems removed and chopped.
- 1 Cup Green Cabbage shredded or chopped
- Topping: Shredded Monterey Jack Cheese and Tortilla chips, strips or crushed.
Instructions
- For The Chicken
- Heat two tablespoons of neutral oil in a heavy skillet. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Sear the chicken breasts until golden on each side. Remove to a plate, let cool, then cut across the grain and then into bite sized pieces. Set aside.
- For The Broth:
- Add the 8 cups of chicken broth to a large soup pot. Add the Mexican oregano, bay leaves, and the Chinese mustard.
- Let the broth simmer over very low heat, uncovered for 30 minutes.
- For The Soup
- Add another two tablespoons oil to the fry pan and add the chopped onion, bell pepper and carrot. Saute, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant: 30 seconds to one minute.
- Add the potatoes and cook, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes.
- Add the vegetables, chicken, corn, chopped roasted chile peppers and cabbage to the broth. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
- Smash about half of the potatoes against the side of the pot. This adds a little consistency to the broth.
- To serve, ladle into soup bowls, top with grated cheese, crumbled corn chips or fried tortilla strips. A wedge of lime for squeezing will brighten flavors even more.
Notes
- Chunky Vegetables: For this soup, I like to keep the vegetable chop size a little larger than a regular Mirepoix, like I do for my Crock Pot Ham and Beans recipe. Since this is billed as a chicken soup with vegetables, the vegetables play a bigger role than just adding flavor.
- Mushy Cabbage: How To Keep Cabbage From Getting Mushy In Soup: Cabbage is a delicate vegetable, especially when thin sliced or shredded. Follow the rules for adding this later in the cook time steps.
- Delicate Simmer: Avoid bringing this cabbage and chicken soup to a rolling boil. An aggressive boil will cause the vegetables to become too soft and the chicken to overcook.
- Acid: The flavor in a a brothy soup is always elevated by some type of acid. Vinegar is a common enhancer, and for this Southwest version, lime juice works very well.
Nutrition
Why Trust My Recipes? I am a Culinary School Graduate and a lifelong student of home cooking. I hope to inspire you try to cook as often as you can. I’ve been cooking for 50 years, and my recipes are tried and true tested and tested and then tested again before published. To read more take a look at my About Page.
This is one of my favorite healthy soup recipes. I make it often.
Lea Ann, this looks soooo good! I’ve long been allergic to garlic, but in recent months have found I cannot tolerate onions either. But this soup has so many flavorful ingredients that I think it will be just fine without the onions and garlic. Looking forward to trying it! Love your tips on adding the cabbage later in the process and NOT attempting to freeze it.
I wanted to stop by to wish you a happy new year.
You’re the best Karen. Happy New Year To You!
Well the surprise ingredient in your soup is the mustard. I can’t wait to give it a try