This Slow Cooker Chicken Fajita and Quinoa Soup is the perfect weeknight meal that is healthy, easy to make and packed with flavors your family will love!
Truth be told I am such a sucker for slow cooking meals. Â Whether it be on a Sunday for football games and weekly meal prep or even during the weekdays when I can easily dump everything into my crock pot before work in the morning and have a delicious healthy meal waiting for us when we get home! Â Crock pots are seriously such LIFESAVERS and since Fall is practically upon us I wanted to kick the season off right with a new favorite recipe!
You guys this chicken fajita and quinoa soup is NO joke.  After my baked chicken fajita roll-ups turned out to be such a hit, I wanted to share something that would not only be easy and delicious, but perfect for families during the week too!  The flavors in this soup are incredible and I love that the chicken literally marinates in everything all day.  This recipe is also a great way to sneak in that quinoa for, you know, kids and hubbies who sadly tend to turn their noses up to my favorite ingredient.  Confession: my husband refuses to eat quinoa.  I really don’t know why?!  I guess he’s just more of a rice and potato kind of person (I mean aren’t we all…), but let me just tell you that he completely DEVOURED this soup.  In like 5 minutes flat.  He topped his with a little shredded cheese, some chopped cilantro and then proceeded to ask me (um more like demand) why I had never made this for him before.
YAY I finally made him a quinoa believer!
HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN FAJITA SOUP
Now I don’t think you understand how ridiculously quick and EASY this recipe is to make.  The “hardest” part is chopping up the bell peppers and onions, but once you do that you basically just dump everything into your crock pot, cover and turn on.  Once everything is done cooking, simply remove the chicken and shred it using two forks, add the chicken back into the soup and it’s ready to go!  If you wanted to add cheese you could do so at this point which makes a thicker, creamier soup.  Also feel free to taste your soup and adjust your salt and/or seasonings as needed – slow cooking tends to require a little extra seasoning, but our soup turned out delicious without any adjustments needed!
I also want to note that this soup freezes great too! Â This is such a huge help for me during the week to have meals I can either freeze or prep for lunches for the week. Â I actually brought a whole pot of this into my office the day after I made it and my co-workers all loved it too! Â In fact a few of them are anxiously waiting for me to post this so they can print the recipe off.
If you love chicken fajitas or really any kind of Mexican food then I promise you will love this! Â I mean with ingredients like chicken, tomatoes, black beans, corn, bell peppers all seasoned with chili powder, cumin and paprika, what’s not to love?? Â Feel free to add more spice too as necessary. Â Next time I may add some chopped jalapeno or a little more cayenne pepper just to bring out the heat since my husband loves a lot of spice. Â This isn’t for everyone though so go all out and make this your own! Â The great thing about this is one whole serving is packed with tons of fiber and protein with little fat which makes a perfect healthy recipe for weekly meals!
I really hope you all enjoy this soup as much as we did and if you do end up making this for you and your family, don’t forget to share your delicious photos on Instagram or Twitter and hashtag #eatyourselfskinnyrecipe so I can see what you all are eating!
Slow Cooker Chicken Fajita & Quinoa Soup
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed
- 3 bell peppers, chopped
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes
- 1 (4.5 oz) can green chiles
- 1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 1 1/2 Tbsp chili powder
- 1 Tbsp cumin
- 2 tsp. paprika
- 2 tsp. salt
- Toppings, optional: Cilantro, avocado, shredded cheese
Instructions
- In a 6-quart slow cooker, add chicken and the rest of ingredients, cover and place on high for 3 to 4 hours or low 6 to 8 hours.
- Remove chicken and shred with two forks then add back into the slow cooker. Season with additional salt and seasonings if needed.
- Spoon soup into bowls and top with favorite toppings, enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Yum! I’m making a birthday lunch for 3 of my girliirends this week! Im going to serve this for sure. DO you have a favorite salad it pairs well with?? Also a clean dessert!!!!
I have some chicken breasts that I already roasted, then vacuum sealed and put in the freezer. If I thaw them, when would you recommend that I add them in since they are already cooked? Thank you!
Since they’re already cooked I wouldn’t suggest adding them to your crock pot for the entire time as overcooked chicken can become really dry. I would either add them in the last hour of slow cooking then shred them OR head them up yourself, shred or chop the chicken then just add it to the soup when it’s done cooking 🙂
Thanks! I’m making this for dinner tonight, then working my way through your top recipes of 2016!
How fun!! Enjoy and Happy New Year!! xo
I have red quinoa – not the white pictured. Will it still work ok?
Yes red quinoa would work just fine! 🙂
I made this last night for my son and his girlfriend but cooked it in my Instant Pot (electric pressure cooker). It is FABULOUS! I added everything to the pot per your directions, cooked it for 20 minutes High Pressure, 10 minutes Natural Pressure, then did a Quick Release to release the remaining pressure, took the chicken out and shredded it and then added it back in. So good and can’t wait to get home for the leftovers – but the best part are the Smart Points – thank you so much for calculating! They ate it with crushed tortilla chips in the bottom of the bowl and then added the soup and topped it with shredded cheese – I just added 1 oz. of shredded cheese so as not to go over my daily points. This is my first recipe of yours to try and am looking forward to trying more.
Oh I’m SO glad you and your family enjoyed this Brenda! 🙂 Thanks for sharing how you used your pressure cooker!
Hi! This looks delicious! I love quinoa but my family isn’t too keen on it. Could I substitute rice? Would I use them same method? Thank you!
Yes rice would be a great substitute! Just substitute 1 cup rice for the 1 cup quinoa 🙂
My family is new to clean eating and we loved this recipe! I used leftover chicken from a big roast chicken and subbed salsa for the diced tomatoes because I couldn’t find anything without added ingredients. It worked out awesome! Such a great soup for cool autumn nights. Thank you!
Yum love the addition of the salsa! So glad you enjoyed this! 🙂
Hi there! Looks amazing! Can I use frozen chicken breasts? If so, can I do it on high for 6 hours?
Hi Lindsay! Personally I strongly advise against putting frozen chicken in the slow cooker because I’ve read that it’s really unsafe, but if you do use frozen chicken I would just leave them in the crock pot for the full 8 hours on low 🙂