Low Carb Taco Soup Recipe (Crock pot + Instant Pot)

An 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, in an Instant Pot, or on the stove, this will quickly become a family favorite. It’s a WHOLE LOTTA YUM!

Taco Soup (Keto)

Your entire family will love this delicious and creamy keto taco soup in a crockpot 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.  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!)

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• With just 10 minutes of prep, this is an easy low carb taco soup to assemble when you’re short on time
• It has just 5.4 net carbs per serving
• Other than browning the hamburger meat, it’s as simple as dumping basic ingredients into the pot.
• It’s a family pleasing recipe that no one would ever guess is a low carb taco soup recipe.
• Keto, low carb, and gluten-free too

On Keto? Grab our FREE keto foods list here OR  Snag our Keto  Binder HERE 

Ingredient Notes

• ground beef – we used an 80/20 ground beef with a higher fat content since it adds lots of flavor to the soup. You can use ground beef with a lower fat content but please don’t use the super low fat kind, it really takes the flavor out of the meat.
• cream cheese – to keep the carbs down, use full-fat cream cheese
• cheddar cheese – shred the cheddar from a block of cheese since the pre-shredded variety 
• Rotel or diced fire-roasted tomatoes with green chili’s 
• beef broth
• taco seasoning (no sugar homemade ) – use a homemade or store bought variety, but be sure to read the labels since many taco seasoning brands add sugar to the mix. Some brands are also extremely spicy, use the amount noted in the recipe if it’s a mild seasoning, if it’s spicy, we suggest cutting it back to 2 Tbsp.
• dried onion
• garlic salt
• ground pepper

Variations 

Instead of ground beef, you can also add variety or lighten things up by using ground turkey or ground chicken. 

Crockpot Step by Step Instructions

Brown the Hamburger Meat

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 Ingredients to the Pot

Add the remaining ingredients, which include softened cream cheese, 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.

Slow Cook

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.

Add your favorite taco toppings and enjoy.

Instant Pot Instructions

1. Turn the Instant Pot to Saute High and brown the ground beef. Drain the grease. Add 1 Tbsp of oil (or 1 Tbsp of reserved beef grease) and saute the diced onion until it’s softened, for about 3-4 minutes. Turn the pot off by pressing the Cancel button.
2. Add the beef broth to the pot and stir the bottom of the pot to remove any onion bits that might be stuck to the bottom.
3. Add the cooked ground beef, Rotel, taco seasoning, onion powder, salt, pepper, to the pot. Stir to combine.
4. Put the lid on the pot and cook the soup on Manual High for 5 minutes, some pots call this setting Pressure Cook. The pot will take about 15-20 minutes to come to pressure. Once the soup is done cooking under pressure, do a Natural Release for 10 minutes before releasing the remaining pressure from the pot. Turn the pot off.
5. Add the cubed cream cheese and stir until it breaks down and is well combined into the soup. Stir in the cheddar cheese until melted.
6. Add your favorite garnishes on top and serve!

Keto Taco Soup on Stove

Making this simple low carb taco soup recipe as a stovetop version is a piece of cake.

1. Cook the ground beef in a dutch oven or stockpot for 7-8 minutes, or until all the way cooked through. Drain the grease.
2. In the same pan as the ground beef, add the remaining ingredients, and then stir to combine.
3. 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.

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. 

Common Questions

How Many Carbs in 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.

What Toppings Work Best?

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 Taco Soup

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.

Can You Freeze Keto Taco Soup?

Since this is a cream cheese based low carb taco soup, we don’t recommend freezing it. Frozen dairy often takes on a grainy consistency after freezing. If you’re making this recipe to batch cook, we suggest cooking the entire recipe without the cheese and cream cheese, and freeze it for up to 3 months.  When you go to heat it up after defrosting, then add the cheese and cream cheese to the soup.

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. 

More Keto Mexican Recipes

• Green Chili Chicken Casserole
• Low Carb Taco Pie
• Crockpot Taco Soup
• Chicken Fajita Bake

Be sure to pin for later!!

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Easy Low Carb Taco Soup (Slow Cooker + Instant Pot)

Yield: 8 servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 4 hours

Total Time: 4 hours 10 minutes

A simple and delicious crockpot keto and low carb taco soup recipe that makes for the perfect easy meal all year round.

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Ingredients

• 2 lb ground beef
• 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

Crock-pot

1. Cook the ground beef or turkey on medium heat on the stovetop until cooked through, about 7-8 minutes. Drain the grease.
2. Add the ground beef to the crockpot and add the remaining ingredients.
3. 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
4. Cook on low heat in the slow cooker for 4+ hours or cook on high for 2 hours.
5. Give the soup a stir before serving and add garnishes as desired
6. Optional garnish ideas- shredded cheese, sour cream, avocado, tomatoes, olives, diced jalepenos, tortilla chips, cilantro, chives

Instant Pot

1. Turn the Instant Pot to Saute High and brown the ground beef. Drain the grease. Add 1 Tbsp of oil (or 1 Tbsp of reserved beef grease) and saute the diced onion until it's softened, for about 3-4 minutes. Turn the pot off by pressing the Cancel button.
2. Add the beef broth to the pot and stir the bottom of the pot to remove any onion bits that might be stuck to the bottom.
3. Add the cooked ground beef, Rotel, taco seasoning, onion powder, salt, pepper, to the pot. Stir to combine.
4. Put the lid on the pot and cook the soup on Manual High for 5 minutes, some pots call this setting Pressure Cook. The pot will take about 15-20 minutes to come to pressure. Once the soup is done cooking under pressure, do a Natural Release for 10 minutes before releasing the remaining pressure from the pot. Turn the pot off.
5. Add the cubed cream cheese and stir until it breaks down and is well combined into the soup. Stir in the cheddar cheese until melted.
6. Add your favorite garnishes on top and serve!

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. To quickly soften the cream cheese, cut it into large cubes and soften it in the microwave for 15-30 seconds.

Ground turkey or ground chicken makes a good substitute instead of ground beef, yet that might mean you need to increase the seasoning since it has a milder flavor

Some taco seasoning brands are very spicy, if you have a brand that's spicy we suggest cutting the taco seasoning back to 2 Tbsp in the recipe.

Recommended Products

As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.

• 
  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 1
Amount Per Serving Calories 547Total Fat 38gSaturated Fat 17gTrans Fat 1gUnsaturated Fat 16gCholesterol 147mgSodium 1507mgCarbohydrates 9gFiber 2gSugar 3gProtein 39g

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