A Southwestern-style green chile chicken soup, with roasted green Hatch chiles, white beans, greens and a rich broth. I made mine with pheasant, and any white meat will work.

The Desert Southwest loves its green chiles, and this green chile chicken soup takes many forms, depending on who cooks it. Some have beans, some chicos, which are dried corn kernels, some potatoes — some all of these things.

My rendition just uses some simple white beans, but it relies on a great broth that, I think, is the star of the show. It’s a soupier version of my pheasant white chili recipe.

This soup is also dairy free, but if you want — or if you messed up and used really hot green chiles — a dollop of sour cream can be a nice touch.

Making Green Chile Chicken Soup

I’ll first walk you through the weekend version, which is much nicer, but takes longer. Then I’ll give you weeknight hacks to make this quckly.

You want to start with either a whole chicken, pheasant, a couple grouse, some partridges, a few quail or a couple rabbits — yes green chile chicken soup can be green chile pheasant soup or whatever.

You’ll simmer the meat to make a nice broth, strip the meat off the bones and strain the broth. Cook some beans — in the broth if you don’t care if it gets cloudy, or separate if you do — add them, plus some roasted green chiles, chard or some other green thing, and sauteed onions and garlic.

Let them get to know each other a bit in the pot, add fresh cilantro or parsley and eat.

You can also speed things up by using premade chicken broth (or game broth) and thighs, legs, and wings, which cook in the broth.

Quick Hacks

Want to make green chile chicken soup fast? Do this.

• Use canned white beans. Rinse them well.
• Use premade chicken or game stock.
• Dice breast meat from chicken, pheasant or other white meat birds.
• Use frozen or canned green chiles that are already roasted.

Do all these and it will still be a nice soup, just not as lovely as the weekend version.

The Green Chiles

Obviously you need green chiles for green chile chicken soup. You have choices. My preference would be roasted Anaheim chiles, which are the generic Hatch chile. That’s the most Southwest option.

Poblanos would be my second choice, followed by chilaca or those giant jalapenos you can find in supermarkets that are very hot.

If you are not going to roast your own chiles, sometimes you can find frozen ones in the supermarket, especially in a Latin market. Canned green chiles are okay, too in this case.

One other option I love to use are dried, roasted green chiles, called chiles pasados in Mexico. (Here’s how to make chiles pasados yourself.)

Other Green Chile Dishes

Some of these are similar to green chile chicken soup, some not so much, but all make good use of roasted green Hatch chiles, which I love.

• Green chile elk cheeseburgers. Obviously you can use whatever ground meat you have on hand.
• Green chile mac and cheese. This one’s more than a little epic, especially on a chilly night.
• A bigger, heartier version of this recipe is green chile stew, with potatoes and red meat.
• Pork chile verde. This is a Mexican dish common throughout that country. Thicker than this soup, and with lots of tomatillos.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below; I’d love to hear how everything went. If you’re on Instagram, share a picture and tag me at huntgathercook.