White Chicken Chili

White chicken chili could be made up of any number of things besides chicken-clear broth with chili ingredients, creamy broth with all white ingredients, or a medley of what you have hanging around in your pantry. Luckily I had a most excellent taste tester who knew exactly what he wanted in his white chili. This recipe is dedicated to my senior high school student with a busy school and work schedule, and a need for creamy chicken chili at a moment's notice.

I'm slowly building a collection of favorite soup recipes that are easy to make. The one-meal kind that can be refrigerated or frozen and easily reheated. The kind that fill the belly and warm the soul. This is one of them.

The best way to defrost frozen soups (and a lot of other stuff for that matter) is to thaw them overnight in the refrigerator. I'll leave you to your own devices if you don't have overnight to defrost your frozen soup (such as immersing the frozen soup jar in a cold water bath to loosen it up and then warming slowly on the stovetop, or, gasp, the microwave on the defrost setting). To freeze, I split up the soup into quart servings (about 2 big bowls of soup), pour them into mason jars leaving about 2 inches of space from the top and then seal the jar with a top.

This soup has a few basic ingredients: a mix of seasonings, beans, chicken, broth, green chilis, and a creamy element, which can be dairy or dairy-free. For the chilis, you can use a can of diced mild green chilis (without additives) or you can make your own by quick-roasting a chili (it's really easy).

There are a number of ways to make this dairy-free, so take a look at the head notes before you dive in.