Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

Prepare your ingredients:

1. Dice onion, potatoes and bell pepper and set aside.
2. Finely chop the garlic.
3. Finely chop the jalepeno pepper. If you don’t want a lot of spice, clean out the rib and seeds before chopping the pepper.
4. Drain the cans of beans.
5. Do NOT drain the fire roasted tomatoes.
6. Chop up the scallions and set aside.
7. Roughly chop the cilantro and set aside.

Let’s make soup:

1. In a large pot, add the olive oil and onion and cook for 3-5 minutes or until translucent. Then add the garlic (be careful not to let the garlic burn).

2. Add the potatoes, jalapeno and bell pepper and cook for another 5 minutes.

3. Stir in beans and tomatoes.

4. Add paprika, chili powder and hot sauce. You can add as little or as much of these spices as you want.

5. Add the vegetable stock and bring the whole soup to a boil, then let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

6. Ladle soup into individual bowls. Garnish with some crushed tortilla chips, shredded cheese, sour cream, scallions and cilantro.

Optional: you can put some cheese on top of each bowl, then put the bowl under a broiler for 2-3 minutes until the cheese is melted. Then add your other garnishes. However, I find this takes too much time and I’d rather eat the soup right away. The choice is yours.