Bottom-Friendly Chicken Tortilla Soup

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

To a flat surface, lay down plastic wrap, then your chicken breasts, then another layer of plastic wrap. Using a meat mallet, pound the chicken breast until 1/4-1/2" thick. Season both sides with salt and pepper.

To a soup pot/dutch oven over medium-high heat, add olive oil, and once hot, sear the chicken breast for about 3 minutes a side, or until browned.

Remove the chicken from the pot and place to the side. To the pan drippings, add turkey bacon and cook until crisp, about 5 minutes.

Once turkey bacon is crisp, add onions, garlic, and Serrano. Cook until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes.

Once the onions are translucent, add cumin, coriander, and smoked paprika. Toast the spices until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add to the soup pot the guajillo chilies, the ancho chili, the cob of 2 ears of corn (reserve the kernels for later), the reserved chicken breast, and top with chicken stock. Once boiling, reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and cook for about 15 minutes.

While the soup is cooking, add the flaxseed to a blender and blend until completely ground. Set the ground flaxseed aside in a bowl.

Remove the lid from the soup, remove the corn cobs, remove the chicken breast, and remove the chilies. Let the chicken cool before shredding.

Place the chilies in the blender with a cup of the cooking stock and CAREFULLY blend until smooth. Add the blended chilies back to the soup (rinse the remainder out with a little water if need be, don't waste any of this liquid gold!). Next, add the crushed tomatoes. Stir everything well before whisking in the ground flaxseed.

Once the soup begins to simmer, add the shredded chicken, the reserved corn kernels, and salt to taste. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 15 more minutes.

While the soup finishes simmering, to a small cookie sheet, add corn tortillas, spray with the olive oil on both sides, and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, flipping half way through.

Once the corn tortillas come out of the oven, serve up the soup with your favorite toppings listed above. I personally don't skip any of them. Crumble up a corn tortilla over the soup as finely as you like. I like big pieces of corn tortilla. Bottoms up!