The colder months are here and football season is back! What does that mean? It means our slow cooker recipes are also back! This week we’re starting with a super high protein Slow Cooker Taco Soup. It’s easy to make, packed with flavor, and perfect for meal prep with healthy macros.

Start this one by putting a large stovetop pan over medium heat. Add in a tablespoon of oil and let that heat up.

Today, I’m using 2 pounds of 93/7 ground beef but ground turkey or chicken work great too. Use whatever lean ground meat you think would pair well with the “taco” flavor. Pro tip? Find what’s on sale and use that!

Add your meat into your pan and break it up a bit once your pan heats up.

Continue by adding in 1/2 chopped up onion and 4 teaspoons of minced garlic.  Both of these are optional. Don’t like them? Don’t add them! Want other vegetables in it? Add those!

Keep everything moving until your meat has browned, this should take around 5-10 minutes. If you didn’t use a lean meat or seem to have excess liquid after it browns, you can drain it if you want (I never do).

Add that browned mix into the bottom of your slow cooker.

Continue by adding in a 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, use fire roasted if you have them, 8 ounces of bone broth, 8 ounces of your choice salsa, a 4 ounce can of diced green chiles, 1 15 1/2 ounce can of drained & rinsed dark red kidney beans, 1 15 ounce can of drained & rinsed black beans, 1 15 1/4 ounce can of regular or southwest corn, 1 ounce/packet of a low sodium taco seasoning mix, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of a ranch dressing mix.

If you’re looking to really lower the sodium in this slow cooker taco soup recipe you can look for no salt added options for all of the canned ingredients listed here.

Homemade Taco Seasoning Mix

*Double or triple this recipe and have access to it whenever you need it!

• 1 1/4 Tablespoons Chili Powder
• 1 1/2 Teaspoons Ground Cumin
• 3/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper, Paprika
• 1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Oregano, Salt (You can use less/no salt)
• 1/4 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper

For your salsa, this is where you can change it up. Use a flavored one and choose your heat.

Taco Soup Salsa

• Mild, Medium or Hot
• Regular, Chunky, or Restaurant Style
• Mango Salsa
• Pineapple Salsa
• Black Bean & Corn Salsa
• Any Pepper Salsa

From here, mix all of those ingredients together thoroughly in your slow cooker. If it looks too “thick” for you or you want a “thinner” slow cooker taco soup you can add in some more broth to thin it out.

Throw your lid on and let it cook on low heat for 7-8 hours or high heat for 3-4 hours.

You can top this with crushed tortilla or other chips, sour cream, guacamole, cheese, and so on to add more flavor and texture to the recipe!

The easiest and fastest way to portion your servings out is to weigh out the entire recipe then divide that number by however many servings you want. If your total weight is 3,000 grams and you want 6 servings, each serving would be 500 grams. If this is still confusing to you, check out our more in-depth article on How To Portion Your Recipes and Create Serving Sizes.