Sopa de lima (Mexican lime soup) recipe

Whenever I get together with my Texan friends in New York, we’ll usually cook our favorite dishes from back home. Enchiladas, chicken-fried steak, brisket and chile con queso all make frequent appearances—the Texan cuisine we serve is comfortable and familiar. I don’t mind this at all.

But on a recent visit to a friend’s house, he served me a flavorful chicken soup that was topped with fried tortilla strips, Monterrey Jack cheese, lime slices and avocado. It was a bit like tortilla soup, but tangier and lighter. “Is this Texan?” I asked. “Sort of,” he said. He then explained that this soup—which is called sopa de lima or Mexican lime soup—originally hails from the Yucatan region of Mexico. But he used to eat it growing up in San Antonio, and it reminded him of home.



I loved that soup, but I didn’t think about it again until I began to feel a tickle in my throat and a heaviness in my chest; if I wasn’t careful, a cold could be coming. Clearly, I needed a quick fix, and I figured that sopa de lima—which is chock full of vitamin C from the lime juice—was what I needed to stave off getting sick.
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