Saturday, March 18, 2006

El Pollo Loco Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

El Pollo Loco Chicken Tortilla Soup

The Orange County Register recently printed a recipe for a clone of El Pollo Loco's Chicken Tortilla Soup. I don't know how long the article will be accessible online so here's the recipe:

CHICKEN TORTILLA SOUP

Yield: 6-8 servings
  • ½ cup instant rice
  • 4 cups water and 4 chicken bouillon cubes
  • 1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes with mild green chilies with liquid
  • 1 15 oz. can black beans with liquid
  • 2 cups diced cooked chicken
  • 1½ cups frozen corn kernels
  • Toppings: blend of shredded Mexican-style cheeses (found in sealed bags in most supermarkets), roughly crumbled tortilla chips, chopped green onion, sour cream
Procedure:
  1. Place all ingredients (except toppings) in 3-quart saucepan. Bring to a boil on high heat; reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 20-30 minutes. Ladle into bowls and add toppings as desired.

If anybody tries this recipe before I do let us know how close it really is to El Pollo Loco's version. UPDATE: I should add that a lot of people keep searching the Internet for "El Pollo Loco Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe" so it must be popular.

UPDATE (February 26, 2009):

A commenter named Dawn just informed us that this very in-demand recipe is on El Pollo Loco's website. If it's been there for a while then I guess it was hidden in plain sight. CLICK HERE then scroll down to almost the bottom of the page for the South of the Border Chicken Soup. I'm guessing this is the same recipe even though it doesn't mention tortilla strips.
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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 02, 2006 6:44 PM

    I can tell you just by looking at the recipe-it doesn't have black beans or rice in it. I don't know why you would say this is El Pollo Loco's soup. No way!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ChristianZOctober 03, 2006 8:52 PM

    I didn't say it is. The newspaper said it is.

    The ingredients listed at elpolloloco.com mention only: "flame-grilled chicken, carrots, celery, Cotija cheese, cilantro and tortilla strips." No mention of beans or rice. So, we are still searching for the real recipe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJanuary 28, 2008 2:43 PM

    El pollo loco's soup is subtly spicey. What we need to find out is the secret to the broth. It can't just be diced chilies.....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dawn DawnFebruary 26, 2009 1:49 PM

    http://www.elpolloloco.com/menu/recipebook.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. ChristianZFebruary 26, 2009 2:03 PM

    Thanks, Dawn! I've updated my entry accordingly.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousSeptember 06, 2015 9:30 PM

    Coming from a el pollo loco manager this is way far off of our recipe of soup no one will ever be able to get the recipe if u havr had the soup from there the torilla soup does not have chilis nor mexican cheese nor beans nor rice so this is a wana be of our soup but not EVEN close

    ReplyDelete