Shore Lunch Tortilla Soup Mix, 9-ounces (Pack of3)

I'm not a huge fan of Shore Lunch's other soups, but their Tortilla Soup mix is absolutely delicious and I'm happy to be able to get it online as it disappeared from my local supermarket. It's a staple in my house because of its sheer simplicity and its excellent flavor: it's better than the vast majority of tortilla soups I have gotten in restaurants. It also has the advantage of not requiring any multi-step complexity - everything you need is in the packet, just boil 7 cups of water and throw in the mix. I imagine this would be a great meal for camping and other outdoor activities because of this. I'm not a big fan of diced tomatoes so I skip those, and haven't felt much need to doctor it up, although I definitely suggest adding lots of chicken, as well as adding cheese and crushed tortilla chips into your bowl (otherwise they'll get too soggy).One minor problem with the mix is clumps - often times you will need to be extremely diligent about breaking these up or you'll end up with a bite of extremely salty, uncooked beans and mix. Whisk it well and apply some downward pressure to chop these in half if you come across them. I recommend cooking the soup a few extra minutes to make sure you don't end up with any hard beans, which can happen occasionally, especially if clumps are broken up during the cooking process. The soup is also slightly salty as a whole, which may turn some people off. It's not something I notice unless I use lots of tortilla chips with it, or eat way too much (which I tend to do quite a bit).The best way to make shredded chicken for this soup is to cook a breast whole at about 350-375 for 20 minutes in the oven. Remove to a large bowl (such as a mixing bowl), and use a hand mixer with the standard beater attachments to shred the chicken. It sounds to an observer like it could never work, but it produces incredibly fluffy, light restaurant-style shredded chicken much more quickly than waiting for the chicken to cool and shredding it by hand. In this way, you can have a soup dinner on the table in 45 minutes, or less if you put the chicken in halfway through cooking.