Southwest Chicken Tortellini Soup, Secretly Loaded With Protein

Cottage cheese has quietly become one of the more useful ingredients in a home cook's arsenal — not for eating by the spoonful, but for what it does when it's blended smooth and stirred into something hot. This soup is the best argument we've found for it yet.

On the surface, it reads like any other cozy, Southwest-leaning soup: bell peppers, corn, fire-roasted tomatoes, shredded chicken, and cheese tortellini in a warm, slightly smoky broth. What you can't tell from a bowl of it is that the richness isn't coming from heavy cream — it's coming from cottage cheese, blended until silky and tempered into the broth. The result is a soup that tastes indulgent but happens to carry a serious amount of protein per serving, without tasting like a "protein soup" at all.

What Makes This One Different

Most high-protein soups lean on the obvious moves — extra chicken, a scoop of protein powder, or a can of beans dumped in for good measure. This one gets there a quieter way. Blending the cottage cheese completely smooth is the whole trick: no lumps, no telltale curds, just a rich, slightly tangy backbone that reads as "creamy soup" to anyone eating it. The Southwest seasoning (chili powder, cumin, a little cayenne) and the fire-roasted tomatoes do the rest of the flavor work, so nothing about this tastes like a compromise.

The tortellini is doing double duty too — it turns a soup into an actual meal, and because it's refrigerated (not dried or frozen), it cooks through in the same five minutes it takes the rest of the pot to come together.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon avocado oil
• 2 medium bell peppers, diced (about 2 cups)
• 1 cup diced onion
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 12 ounces frozen corn
• 1 (14.5 oz) can diced fire-roasted tomatoes, not drained
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups diced cooked chicken breast
• 1½ cups cottage cheese, blended smooth
• 18 ounces refrigerated cheese tortellini
• Lime wedges and shredded cheese, for serving

How to Make It

1. Heat the avocado oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the bell peppers, onion, and garlic, and sauté until the onion starts to soften.
2. Sprinkle in the chili powder, cumin, cayenne, and salt. Stir well and let the spices toast with the vegetables for 2–3 minutes.
3. Add the frozen corn and fire-roasted tomatoes (with their juices) and stir to combine.
4. Pour in the chicken broth and add the cooked chicken. Bring to a low boil and let it cook for 5 minutes.
5. While that simmers, spoon ¼–⅓ cup of the hot broth into the blended cottage cheese and whisk vigorously — this tempers it so it won't separate when it hits the pot.
6. Slowly pour the cottage cheese mixture into the soup, stirring constantly until it's fully incorporated. Don't let the soup return to a rolling boil once the cottage cheese is in.
7. Add the tortellini and cook for about 5 more minutes, until it floats and is tender.
8. Serve with a squeeze of lime and a little shredded cheese on top.

Make-Ahead

The soup base (everything except the tortellini) keeps well in the fridge for 3–4 days and freezes for up to 3 months. Add the tortellini fresh when you reheat, since it doesn't hold up well to freezing on its own.

Substitutions

Ground turkey or lean ground beef both work in place of the shredded chicken — just cook it through before it goes into the pot. Leave the tortellini out (or swap in a low-carb pasta) for a lighter, lower-carb version.