Easy low carb taco soup makes the perfect year-round soup when you want Mexican food and are craving something other than tacos. Whether you decide to make this as a crockpot taco soup recipe or the stovetop easy taco soup, this will quickly become a family favorite.
Your entire family will love this easy and delicious slow cooker taco soup that is made extra hearty with cream cheese and cheddar cheese.
If you’ve been wanting to find a recipe for taco soup, your search is over because this simple yet hearty low carb taco soup with cream cheese is the best!
I’m going to fully admit, I loved this soup so much I overate and had 3 bowls of it, since my family wasn’t home and no one was watching lol. And I’m also going to admit with Cinco de Mayo around the corner, we’ve been whipping up a variety of Mexican inspired dishes for the festive occasion.
Combing your favorite taco flavors into a comforting bowl of soup makes an easy meal year-round, and you’ll love having alternatives to standard tacos (which are amazing for a reason, but it’s so nice to have variety!)
This delicious and cheesy taco soup is not only low carb but it’s gluten-free, sugar-free, and keto taco soup too!
Keto Taco Soup
Each serving has 5.4 net carbs. If you’re really trying to get the carbs down, be sure to use cheddar cheese, some cheddar brands have 0 net carbs! You can also use less cream cheese. Both the cheddar and cream cheese brands we used are by Trader Joes and have 0 carbs. And sure you’re also using a homemade taco seasoning without sugar.
It only takes 10 minutes to put together in the crockpot and when it’s done you just need to add your toppings of choice!
Great optional toppings include more cheese, sour cream, fresh cilantro, avocado, guacamole, or jalapeños. The optional garnishes are not calculated in the nutritional content.
Low Carb Taco Soup Ingredients
- 2 lb ground beef (or ground turkey)
- 1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened and cut into cubes
- 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded, or 3 cheese blend
- 2 10 oz cans of Rotel or diced fire-roasted tomatoes with green chili’s
- 32 oz beef broth
- 3 T taco seasoning (no sugar or homemade option below)
- 2 T dried onion
- 1/2 tsp garlic salt
- 1/4 tsp ground pepper
How to Make Crockpot Taco Soup
Cook the ground beef and drain the grease. It’s perfectly fine to use ground turkey or ground chicken in this recipe, I’ve never tried to cook it with super lean meat, and the ground beef for this recipe was 80% lean/ 20% fat.
Add the drained ground beef to a crockpot.
Add the remaining ingredients, which includes softened cream cheese, the cheddar cheese, Rotel, beef broth, taco seasoning, dried onion, salt, and pepper.
I mixed up all the ingredients to blend the flavors except for the cream cheese. So I stirred the soup around the cream cheese and that will break down into the rest of the soup as it heats up and softens.
Cook on low 4+ hours or high on 2 hours. The slow cooker taco soup is technically done after 4 hours on low but can cook 6+ hours if needed.
Give the soup one more stir before serving to make sure that that cream cheese is fully mixed in.
Cream Cheese Tip:
One tip about the cream cheese, I highly recommend making sure your cream cheese is at room temperature before adding to the crockpot. Sometimes when you mix cold dairy ingredients with warm ingredients, it can prevent the dairy from completely integrating with the other ingredients or may even cause it to curdle.
You can also cut your room temperature cream cheese into small chunks before adding it to the pot. I added my entire block of cream cheese without an issue, after 4 hours of cooking and then stirring the soup, it still hadn’t broken down completely but was still technically done. After 6 hours of cooking the low carb taco soup in the crockpot, the cream cheese had fully broken down and you could no longer see any cream cheese.
Some less expensive or low-fat cream cheese brands might not mix in as well as higher quality or full-fat cream cheese.
Easy Sugar-Free Taco Seasoning
Here’s the link to my sister’s sugar-free homemade taco seasoning. You can also find sugar free taco seasoning online, but it’s cheaper to make it yourself.
This WILL give you a little more than you need for this keto soup recipe, but it’ll keep in an airtight jar for months for later use. So easy to double and triple the recipe!
Easy Taco Soup Recipe (stovetop version)
Making this simple taco soup recipe as a stovetop version is a piece of cake.
Cook the ground beef in a dutch oven or stockpot for 7-8 minutes, or until all the way cooked through. Drain the grease.
In the same pan as the ground beef, add the remaining ingredients, and then stir to combine.
Heat the soup on medium heat until it starts to just bubble, turn the heat down to low and simmer with the lid on for 1 hour, so flavors can blend.
Toppings for Slow Cooker Taco Soup
The options are unlimited with what to serve as a garnish for this easy crockpot taco soup! Any of the classic taco toppings work well. Here’s a handful of our favorites:
- more shredded cheese (can you ever get enough cheese?)
- sour cream
- avocado
- diced tomato
- cilantro
- chives
- olives
- guacamole
- salsa
When you look at the recipe nutritional content, it’s for the soup only and doesn’t include the optional toppings, so make sure to calculate that separately if you’re keeping track of macros.
How to Reheat This Taco Soup Recipe
Eating leftover soup is one of the best parts of making this taco soup recipe. Many times soups with cream or cheese will thicken as the soup cools and doesn’t have the same consistency as the soup fresh out of the crockpot.
Not to worry! Just add extra beef broth, chicken broth or even water to the pot before reheating the low carb taco soup to make it the consistency you’re wanting.
This easy taco soup reheated quickly for us in a slow cooker on high for 30-40 minutes or you can heat the soup on medium on the stovetop, and once it starts to break bubbles on the top, turn it down to simmer.
For either re-heating method, be sure to stir the soup periodically and keep an eye on it since soups with dairy in them burn easier than non-dairy based soups.
What if I’m Not Trying to Eat Low Carb?
If you found our recipe but aren’t necessarily trying to cut down your carbs, instead of using 2 pounds of ground beef, feel free to substitute 1 of the pounds of meat for a can of drained kidney beans or can of drained corn.
One wonderful thing about making an easy taco soup recipe is how simple it is to make substitutions for what you have on hand. Don’t have Mexican blend cheese? Feel free to use shredded cheddar.
Don’t want meat? Swap all of the meat for beans and corn instead, or add hearty vegetables like zucchini or diced peppers.
Don’t want to run to the store to buy Rotel, but maybe you have diced tomatoes and canned green peppers in your pantry, use that instead.
Other Keto Mexican Recipes You’ll Love
Be sure to pin for later!!
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Easy Low Carb Taco Soup (Slow Cooker + Stovetop Recipes)
A simple and delicious crockpot keto and low carb taco soup recipe that makes for the perfect easy meal all year round.
Ingredients
- 2 lb ground beef (or ground turkey)
- 1 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened (and cut into cubes)
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese or 3 cheese blend
- 2 10oz cans Rotel diced tomatoes with green chilis
- 32 oz beef broth
- 3 T taco seasoning (no sugar or homemade recipe)
- 2 T dried onion
- 1/2 tsp garlic salt
- 1/4 tsp ground pepper
- Optional garnishes - shredded cheese, sour cream, avocado, cilantro
Instructions
- Cook the ground beef or turkey on medium heat on the stovetop until cooked through, about 7-8 minutes. Drain the grease.
- Add the ground beef to the crockpot and add the remaining ingredients.
- Stir to combine, you won't be able to mix in the cream cheese since it'll take the heat of the slow cooked soup to break it down into the soup as it cooks
- Cook on low heat in the slow cooker for 4+ hours or cook on high for 2 hours.
- Give the soup a stir before serving and add garnishes as desired
- Optional garnish ideas- shredded cheese, sour cream, avocado, tomatoes, olives, diced jalepenos, tortilla chips, cilantro, chives
Notes
The cream cheese needs to be at room temperature or it won't fully break down into the soup.
Cutting the cream cheese into cubes also works best
Ground turkey makes a good substitute instead of ground beef, yet that might mean you need to increase the seasoning since it has a milder flavor
Recommended Products
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Crock Pot Artisan 7 Quart Enameled Cast Iron Round Dutch Oven, Sapphire Blue - Fody Foods Vegan Taco Seasoning | Flavorful Blend | Low FODMAP Certified | Gut Friendly No Onion No Garlic | IBS Friendly Kitchen Staple | Gluten Free Lactose Free Non GMO | 4.02 Ounce
- Crock-Pot Cook & Carry 6-Quart Oval Portable Manual Slow Cooker | Stainless Steel (SCCPVL600S)
Nutrition Information
Yield 8 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 547 Total Fat 38g Saturated Fat 17g Trans Fat 1g Unsaturated Fat 16g Cholesterol 147mg Sodium 1507mg Carbohydrates 9g Fiber 2g Sugar 3g Protein 39g
I have been scouring the internet for good recipes. This was absolutely amazing! My husband said “wow, this is really good” probably 5 different times!
Thank you so much Ashley! I’m so glad you and your husband loved the low carb taco soup!