Clean Eating Taco Soup

Mmmmm, TACOS!  I love tacos!  Yes it is basically just meat and veggies, but I love those flavors.  They are smokey and slightly spicy.  Ok, I am hungry, so I am going to post this and then eat some of this taco soup!!

I have my nephew staying with me and he is a 15 year old who is a picky eater.  I am trying to get him to eat what I am eating, so that I don’t have to make 2 meals, and that so he doesn’t have to eat Turkey sandwiches or bowls of Captain Crunch every night for dinner.  (He could seriously live on that crap).  I have taught him how to hide veggies in his smoothies, so that’s progress.  The past week I have been making dishes I already know he likes, with my recipes that are clean, but that have already been shared with you here.  His favorite being the Chicken Curry (I love it too, but I don’t want it every night!).  So, I was thinking Tacos!  Easy enough, ground beef, clean corn tortillas (thank you Trader Joe’s), lettuce, tomato, cheese…but how do I season the meat, just cumin?  I don’t want a package of hydrogenated oils to flavor it.  So I took to Google for a taco seasoning recipe and found something even better!!  Taco Soup!!! (Ok, maybe not better, but definitely in my wheelhouse, I love soup!)

Courtesy of www.heandsheeatclean.com

I found a Taco Soup recipe, that included the recipes for Taco Seasoning and Ranch seasoning, so that I didn’t have to dump the hydrogenated oil packets into it.  And it added beans for additional protein and fiber (FILLING!).  I made this this morning, as the snow caused a delay to enter my work facility, and let me just tell you, I wanted to eat it for breakfast!!!  I hope you will try this and enjoy it as much as I did!!

Ingredients:

1 lb extra lean ground turkey, beef, or ground chicken breast

1 onion, chopped

1 pkg ranch dressing mix (for clean mix, use the recipe I posted)

1 pkg taco seasoning mix (for clean mix, use the recipe I posted)

1 can  pinto beans, drained

1 can  kidney beans, drained

1 bag whole kernel corn

1 can Rotel-style tomatoes (mild)

1 can tomatoe sauce

1 cup low sodium chicken stock

Directions:

1. Brown meat & onions (in a stock pot or dutch oven)

2. Mix ranch & taco seasonings into meat

3. Add the rest of the ingredients into mixture

4. Add a cup and a half of low sodium chicken stock

4. Simmer for at least 1 hour

You may notice that you don't see corn in the pic, that is because I had forgotten it!!  I remedied that quickly though! LOL