I chanced upon this book The Perfect recipe for losing weight and eating right at the library and I decided to buy the book pretty soon after. The main reason for the purchase was the options which the book gives for making your own salad and soup. There is a section, ‘Create your own soup(or salad) combos’ in the book which had me hooked.

The author has divided the soup as a combination of herbs, meat, vegetables, starch and other flavorings. She lists out 10-12 items under each of these. So you can pick 1 or 2 herbs from the list, pick couple of veggies so that it adds up to 1 pound (1/2 kg), 1 or 2 starches  like black beans, rice or pasta and then flavor it the way you want. Its very similar to the ‘build your own’ salad my friend Swapna taught me to make, so that’s another reason I like the book :-).

True, I haven’t tried a lot of dishes from this book, but I have repeated the couple of recipes many times. So read for this version of Mexican Chicken and Black Bean soup,made in Instant Pot.

Recipe adapted from: The Perfect recipe for losing weight and eating right

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons oil
• 1 large onion, finely sliced
• 2 teaspoons chilli powder, or per taste
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• salt
• 2 medium carrots, cut into circles
• 2 medium zucchini, diced
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1 cup cooked black beans or rajma
• 1/2 cup elbow macaroni
• 1 quart/liter vegetable broth (I used water)
• 1 14.5 can diced tomatoes (or 5-6 tomatoes, pulsed in the mixer)
• 2 handfuls of coriander leaves
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan. I used the electric pressure cooker here (Instant pot). Saute the onions and once it changes color, add the chillli powder, salt and oregano. Saute for a few moments, then add carrots and zucchini.
2. Saute that for a couple of minutes and add everything else except the lemon juice.
3. Cook in soup mode for 10 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally and add the lemon juice, if preferred and serve hot.

This recipe goes to this week’s Cooking from Cook Book Challenge. Please follow the link to know more about the event.