Budget-friendly, family-pleasing 5 Ingredient Taco Soup (2024)

You’ve got to love 5 Ingredient Taco Soup both for the exuberantly bold taco flavour and for the incredible ease with which it’s prepared. The best part is this is a budget-friendly healthy dinner that comes together in 15 minutes and makes my entire family happy!

As if that wasn’t enough to recommend this taco soup is customizable based on your own personal preferences and what you have on hand. My default meat or protein in this soup is generally leftover mojo pork or Jack Daniels pulled pork, but I’ve also made it with ground beef from the freezer, leftover rotisserie chicken, or shredded chicken.

When my vegetarian family members have come over, I’ve even made it with double the beans or a meat substitute. It’s really a unicorn soup; magical and perfect!

Taco Soup Recipe

Now people, there are a million taco soup recipes out there (including our slow cooker taco soup recipe!) and many of them are much more complicated than this one. But I’m here to tell you that unless I absolutely need to walk in the door and have dinner ready to scoop into bowls, this is the only taco soup I make these days.

It’s honest-to-Pete so good, so satisfying, and so ever-loving easy, I see no reason to make more work for myself by making any other taco soup recipe! And I almost always have all of the ingredients on hand, whether in the pantry or freezer, so it’s a no-brainer on even the busiest of nights.

When you need a quick dinner on a cold day, this easy soup recipe is going to be your new “old-reliable”. There are so many different ways to make it!

Let’s knock out these short ingredient and equipment lists so you know what to lay by for those nights when you just want a comforting bowl of soup with no hassle. I’m betting you already the full list of ingredients on hand already!

Taco Soup Ingredients

1. Leftover pulled pork, leftover shredded chicken, leftover taco meat, or ground beef, ground turkey, or ground chicken
2. Canned (or cooked) black beans, pinto beans, red beans, or kidney beans
3. Chicken, beef, or vegetable broth or stock
4. Canned diced tomatoes (with or without green chilies) or crushed tomatoes, tomato purée, or unseasoned tomato sauce
5. Homemade Taco Seasoning (or purchased)

Why all the meat options? Because they’re all divine in this soup and it’s awfully nice to have a recipe that accommodates whatever you have on hand.

I almost always have some pulled pork or leftover taco meat in the freezer. Those are my go-tos, but if you’ve got half a rotisserie chicken or some grilled chicken/beef/or pork left, that’ll do the trick, too.

You can choose chicken, vegetable, or beef broth or stock. Again, go with what you like best and have on hand! I default to chicken broth, because it’s what I keep in my pantry.

Canned Beans

Pick the beans you love best. For my family, that’s black beans, but we’ve used just about every kind of bean you can imagine in our delicious soup. You can even opt to make this soup more of a stew and stir in some refried beans to thicken the pot!

If you opt for chili beans, go ahead and include the sauce with the beans; don’t rinse those! However, any other bean should be well drained and rinsed before adding it to the soup.

I use tomato purée most often in my soup, but Rotel diced tomatoes with green chiles add a little extra something-something and kick. My household tends to prefer tomato to be in puréed form for soup, so if I choose Rotel, I run it through the blender or food processor quickly.

More Optional Ingredients for Taco Soup

I’m here to tell you that 5 ingredients are really all that is needed to make a stupendous taco soup. Now, you can most certainly go a little further and add in some corn and fancy garnish if you’re so inclined.

I have one kiddo who is not super keen on corn off the cob (don’t ask because I have no idea why), so I just serve it on the side for those of us who love it. Taco soup is also a great way to use up odds and ends of various things from the refrigerator.

I garnish our delicious taco soup with any combination of avocados, a squeeze of fresh lime juice, corn chips, grated Cheddar cheese or pepper jack cheese, fresh cilantro, chopped onions, green onion, bell peppers, pico de gallo, and candied jalapeños and finished it with a dollop of sour cream, plain Greek yogurt, or crema. Basically, if it goes in or on a taco, I’ve put it in or on this soup.

Equipment

1. Soup pot
2. Can opener
3. Long handled Spoon
4. Strainer

Any large pot of 3 quarts or more capacity will work for our taco soup recipe; you don’t need a dedicated soup pot or dutch oven. And everything else pretty well explains itself!

With all the time you save with your lightning fast dinner prep, you can make yourself a co*cktail to have before your meal! How about a round of Berry Kombucha Margaritas?

Or whip up a fast dessert! Try a Snickerdoodle Mug Cake {single serve cinnamon vanilla butter cake}, some Churros Waffles – Easy Cinnamon Sugar Waffles, or some Cinnamon Toast Cake!

5 Ingredient Taco Soup

If using leftover shredded chicken, pulled pork or taco meat, stir all of the ingredients together in a stock pot, dutch oven or soup pan over medium heat. Bring to a boil then drop the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve as is or topped with a squeeze of lime juice, plain Greek yogurt, sour cream, or crema, tortilla chips, canned corn, shredded cheddar cheese, diced red onions, green onions, avocados, or whatever else you love!

Notes:

If making with raw ground turkey or ground beef, brown this in your dutch oven or soup pot first. Drain excess fat, then add the rest of the ingredients and proceed as directed.