Chicken Tomatillo Soup with Hominy
This Instant Pot Chicken and Hominy Soup with mild salsa verde, tart tomatillos, and white and yellow hominy is a cozy chicken soup you can really adapt to your tastes. Just add your favorite toppings and enjoy!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
This Instant Pot soup takes less than 40 minutes to make and is mostly hands-off. You can use pre-cooked or raw chicken and it’s even better as leftovers the next day!
We love serving this soup on chilly nights here in Utah with our family’s favorite toppings, including avocado, cilantro, and shredded cabbage.
This is one of our favorite Instant Pot chicken recipes, along with Easy Instant Pot Chicken Tacos, Thai-Inspired Chicken Wraps, and Honey Sesame Chicken.
Update: We’ve updated this recipe and post with new tips and photos to help you make the best Instant Pot Chicken and Hominy Soup.
INGREDIENTS YOU NEED
Here’s what you need for this brothy and delicious chicken soup with hominy:
- Onion and garlic. These make a delicious flavor base for your soup.
- Tomatillas. Look for canned tomatillos for this soup.
- Cumin. This spice adds a delicious Mexican-inspired flavor.
- Chicken. You can use raw or cooked chicken for this soup, which makes it great for leftovers.
- Chicken broth. Use store-bought or make your own broth in the pressure cooker.
- Salsa verde. Look for canned or fresh salsa verde at the grocery store.
- Hominy. We love the mixture of yellow and white hominy in this soup.
- Pepper flakes. These add a touch of heat, but you can use more or leave them out, depending on your spice preference.
How to Make Chicken Hominy Soup in an Instant Pot
✅ This easy recipe will work in any brand of electric pressure cooker, including the Instant Pot, Ninja Foodi, or Power Pressure Cooker XL.
Start making this soup by sauteing the onion and garlic in the pressure cooking pot. Then add the broth, chicken, hominy, and cumin and stir everything together. Place the tomatillos and salsa verde on top without stirring.
Now lock on the lid and cook on high pressure for five minutes. When the cooking time is over, turn off the Instant Pot and let the pressure release for five minutes, then finish with a quick pressure release.
Remove the lid, stir the soup, and you can add more salt and pepper now if you like. Serve your hominy and chicken soup with your favorite toppings. Enjoy!
Important Tips for Making Chicken and Hominy Soup
- I prefer the texture and flavor of this soup the day after I’ve made it. The flavors develop a lot overnight, so if you’re planning ahead, this is a great dish to make in advance.
- If you’re using uncooked chicken, be sure to cut it into small bite-sized pieces so it cooks at the same time as the rest of the soup.
- Note that the pressure cooker will take about 20 minutes to reach pressure due to all the liquid inside.
Frequently Asked Questions about Hominy Soup with Chicken
We usually top our bowls of soup with thinly shredded cabbage or lettuce, fresh cilantro, thinly sliced radishes, avocado (sliced or mashed), and lime wedges. Sour cream
Sometimes I shred a head of cabbage from the grocery store. Other times I grab a bag of angel hair cabbage from the refrigerated section.
We love serving this soup the next day. Store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to four days.
Yes, you can freeze the cooled soup for up to six months.
Yes, you can make this soup with raw or cooked chicken. It’s a great recipe to use leftover chicken or rotisserie chicken.
Hominy is sold in cans, often in the international aisle of the grocery store. I like to have a mix of yellow and white because it looks pretty, but it won’t make a difference in taste if you use the larger can of just one color.
More Instant Pot Chicken Soup Recipes
Recipes you can make with this or other recipes you might like:
- Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup is a classic on days when you’re feeling under the weather, or any time you need some comfort food.
- Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup is a rich and silky soup made with tender wild rice.
- White Chicken Chili Recipe is a super comforting and hearty soup with shredded chicken and beans.
Do you LOVE this recipe?
Leave us a review below to tell us why!
Chicken Tomatillo Soup with Hominy
Ingredients
- 1 can 28 oz tomatillos
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 large onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced or pressed
- 3 cups diced chicken cooked OR uncooked (about 2 large chicken breasts)*
- 2 cans 14 oz each chicken broth*
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon salt plus additional to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper plus additional to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 jar 16 oz salsa verde
- 1 can 15 oz yellow hominy, drained and rinsed
- 1 can 15 oz white hominy, drained and rinsed
- Toppings including thinly sliced radishes, sliced avocado, thinly shredded cabbage, fresh cilantro, tortilla strips, sour cream or lime wedges, as desired
Instructions
- Place the canned tomatillos (including the juice) in a blender jar and blend until smooth.
- Select Sauté and add the oil to the pressure cooker pot. When the oil is hot, add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for an additional minute. Add the chicken and saute for 1 to 2 minutes more.
- Add the chicken broth*, cumin, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, and stir until well combined. Scrape the bottom of the pot to ensure no browned bits remain.
- On top, layer the tomatillos and salsa verde and DO NOT STIR. Lock the lid in place. Select High Pressure and 5 minutes cook time. (It will take about 20 minutes to come to pressure because there is so much liquid.)
- When the cook time ends, allow the pressure to release naturally for 5 minutes, then finish with a quick pressure release. When the valve drops, carefully remove the lid. Add hominy and gently stir the soup until well combined. Add additional salt and pepper to taste.
- Scoop the soup into bowls and top with your favorite toppings. Serve hot.
Notes
Nutrition
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Yummy! Can’t wait to make this!
Barbara, thank you for giving us such a flavorful and satisfying soup! I just made this soup for the second time and put it on my Favorites list. The first time I made it I substituted 1 pound of fresh tomatillos (coarsely chopped) and found the soup much too tart. Next time I will probably reduce the amount of fresh tomatillos to 12 ounces. This time, while I was prepping the rest of the ingredients, I charred a pound of fresh tomatillos under the broiler of my toaster oven and absolutely loved the flavor that they brought to the soup. I’m finding that the tart flavor has been quickly growing on me and if I don’t get the leftovers into the freezer quickly I won’t have any left to freeze.
Barbara, I haven’t used canned tomatillos before. I would like to make this into a Pantry Soup by using the canned tomatillos as you do. Do you think that these will take a char (as mentioned above) in spite of being so wet?
Thanks Rita! They’re pretty wet in the can so they’d probably have to dry out to char, so I’m not sure you’d get the result you’re looking for. It does sound like a great flavor boost.
Hi Aunt Barbara! I stopped over to a friends house for lunch today. She had her pressure cooker going and it smelled divine! She ladeled out this delicious soup! I was like.. Oh my gosh! This is so good! She said thanks! It’s from your Aunts website!! So full of flavor, hearty and delicious!
Such a fun coincidence. Thanks for sharing Brandie! We love this one too.
Barbara, i am making this tonight. Did I miss your topping suggestions? Anything else besides chopped avocado and cilantro?
Hi Rita – any topping that you like on a chicken tortilla or taco soup would work well with this soup. Tortilla strips, sour cream, a little shredded cheese would all be great as well. Enjoy!
I saw. I chopped. I pressured. Awesome! What a great recipe. Probably among the top 5 soups I’ve ever eaten….much less cooked.
I have made this recipe numerous times for my family and we all love it. It is easy, flavorful, and typically have all the ingredients on hand. In a pinch, I have used grape apple juice and there is no difference in taste.
This soup is great. It benefits hugely though from an overnight in the fridge. The flavors really come together.
I’ve made this delicious soup several times. After the second try, I swapped bottled salsa verde for mild, canned green chiles (Lucky carries it) and the result is spectacular and much “cleaner” and fresher tasting than using salsa verde with all the binders/thickeners.
Brava! This soup is a winner!
Thanks Jennifer – I’m glad you enjoy the soup. Thanks for sharing your suggestion. I’ll have to give it a try.
Barbara, how big is the can of tomatillos? I am not able to get them canned often. I don’t know why, the stores carry all kinds of other canned Mexican things. I can sometimes get them fresh but not always. I’ve even checked the Mexican stores locally without much success. And I love tomatillos. So I have looked for canned so as to always have them when I need them. Once I found the big 28 ounce but last time I looked I was only able to get 15 ounce cans. I make a green chili with pork that satisfies my craving for them but your soup sounds good too so I want to try it.
You could really use either the 15 ounce or the 28 ounce in the soup. I used a 28 ounce can because that’s all the stores around here seem to carry. Winco in our area has the best selection, the others are hit and miss on tomatillos. It’s a great soup. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
Barbara, this soup sounds amazing! Our family always enjoys a hearty soup on Christmas Eve and I’ve been searching for a new recipe for our special meal. Here it is the day before Christmas Eve and I do not own a pressure cooker (nor can I run out to buy one at this time). Do you have any suggestions how to adjust the directions for stove top or slow cooker? I’d be so grateful for your help…Merry Christmas.
Hi Wendy – I adapted the recipe from this stove top recipe http://www.armelleblog.com/2009/03/chicken-tomatillo-soup-with-hominy.html. It would be a wonderful soup for Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas!
Thank you, Barbara! I can’t wait to try it.
LOVE using hominy! I have been searching for good hominy recipes. Thanks!
This recipe was a hit! Really delicious.
Thanks for letting me know you made it Elizabeth. So glad you enjoyed it.
I’m new to pressure cooking so I’m hoping you can explain why you would need to pre-cook the chicken. It’s cut into small bite-size pieces and it seems to me that it would cook perfectly in 5 minutes under high pressure and then slow release. Am I wrong?
Hi Debbie – you’re right. I haven’t tried uncooked chicken in this recipe, but there isn’t any reason you couldn’t use it. I would probably brown the chicken before cooking the onion, but browning would just add more flavor and isn’t necessary.
One of the reasons I used cooked chicken was because I’d recently done a post on Cooking Chicken for the Week in 22 minutes. https://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/2012/12/cooking-chicken-for-the-week-in-22-minutes/. Also, I believe the original recipe called for cooked chicken.
Thanks for the great question! Please let me know if you give it a try.
Hi Barbara, i like your website very much and you have excellent recipes.
I would love you to try this same chicken tomatillo soup with beef broth instead of chicken broth the taste is just incredibly wonderful.
Enjoy and happy New Year
Your Mexican friend
Aida
Hi Aida – Thanks for the suggestion. I’d love to give it a try. Do you use chicken with the beef broth or beef instead?
Hi Barbara, nice to hear from you so soon, thank you.
I use chicken and beef either way or both together please try as many ways as you like for a change, they all taste incredible nice.( beef meat should be very soft cooked)
I make my own beef broth very simple as a compliment to a lot of foods.
I just pour 2 1/2 pounds of marrow bones with some meat in it, 1 complete medium onion, 1/2 of a head of garlic cloves, 5 allspice( fat pepper corns) and 3 bay leaves, salt and black pepper to taste cover all with cold water, let boil, take away the foam, close the pressure cooker lid and let cook for one hour,let cool by itself, open it and ready to enjoy.(Skim all the fat)
Here in Mexico we make almost all foods with this kind of broth and we use a lot of different chilies to make hot soups, if you would like some of my own recipes please just tell me what would you like to eat tomorrow ? and i will send them to you, I am not a chef but a little professional, some times I use to make banquets just for my children’s Wedding commitments or some parties for up to 200 people,normal gourmet Mexican and International food and Kosher too.
Not any more for now until my grandchildren will be 13 years old they are triplets and they have now 10 years. The older one is 25 but it is a boy so who knows when he will get married.
Anything you like please don’t hesitate to ask for.
It will be a pleasure to help you with some delights that i make, the only bath thing is I do not have measures you understand me, I’m an older woman raised from European parents and lived all my life in Mexico City.
Waiting to hear from you soon and from your fans also if i can help with some tips for your pressure pot as i use it every day.
Thank you for the recipe. I have yet to make beef broth, and hope to try it soon. Wow triplets that’s so exciting. Sounds like you have had a wonderful life. I would very much like for you to share a recipe(s) with me and my readers. Do you have a favorite that you would like to share?
so glad you liked my recipe in the zupas cookbook!
Hi Caroline – it’s a great combination of flavors. Thanks for sharing it.
I linked to your yummy Creamy Pressure Cooker Rice Pudding on my post today! What a great dessert–and made in a pressure cooker to boot! Thank you! http://www.ipinnedit.com/recipes/succulent-sunday-pot-roast/
I’ve never tried hominy….I will be now! That soup looks so good. Thank you Barbara!
Thanks Carol! I hope you like it as much as we do.
I’m such a fan of hominy in soup and I just when I thought I had tried every one this tomatilla version shows up. Nice photo. Now if I can just get a pressure cooker, I’ll be set.
Thanks Lea Ann! I’d love to hear about the other hominy soups.
love that hominy!
YUM!
I love all of the little comments about your husband’s opinion. It confirms that I’m not the only cook in the world with a picky husband!!
Oh, and to try new things.. SCANDALOUS!!
Ciao,
L
P.S. Soup looks great. ; )
I didn’t think hubs was such a picky eater, because I use to be such a picky eater. Now I’m the more adventurous one. lol