Soup is great because it’s a very passive cooking experience. Also it’s a good way to use up a bunch of ingredients you don’t know what to do with.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can talk about the pros and cons of soup.

Black Bean Tortilla Soup. I used garbanzo beans too but that’s too many words.

BLACK BEAN TORTILLA SOUP

prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 60+ minutes

Disclaimer one: I used lots of garlic and lots of onion.
Disclaimer two: I didn’t take as many pictures because I didn’t initially plan on posting this one.

First, you’re going to prep the base of your soup. Feel free to swap out or alter things to your liking.

What you’ll need:

garlic
onion
olive oil
salt
pepper
chiles (I used de arbol)
fresh thyme & sage

Peel your garlic and chop it up. I used an entire bulb of garlic and an entire onion for this recipe. The idea was to clean the fridge out…deliciously. Chop down your onion and set half of it aside for topping later.

Remove the stems of your chiles and remove all the seeds. Keep a few of them in there if you prefer it spicier. I used about five chiles.

Trim the leaves off of your thyme and sage. You can sub out different herbs if you only have different herbs. If you don’t have herbs, you need to keep herbs on deck!

Get out a pot and add some olive oil and heat it up to a medium flame. Add all your stuff into there and toss your ingredients in there. Let them cook for a second, careful not to burn anything. Once you see your garlic start to brown, add a cup of water into the pot. Bring the pot up to a boil and add salt and pepper. Stir it up some and add your herbs in there too.

While that is boiling up, get out your blender cause all that stuff is going in there.

Next, you’re going to blend that stuff up and set it aside and get your actual broth started.

What you’ll need:

the contents of your blender
vegetable broth
black beans
garbanzo beans
whatever beans
salt
pepper
bay leaves

Add your broth into the pot. I used the kind pictured below. If you need to add water at any point for the sake of having more broth, that is a-okay. 32 ounces wasn’t particularly enough for me because I keep sneaking samples so I added water too. Bring the temperature up to boil and add salt.

One is never enough. Always get a second broth.

Drain and rinse your beans. Two cans is perfect, whatever beans you may have chosen. Hopefully you do have black beans.

Once your broth is boiling, add the contents of your blender and the beans as well.

Toss a bay leaf in there. Fuck it, put two in there.

Drop the temperature all the way down and put a lid on the pot and let it simmer while you do other stuff.

Next, it’s time to prepare the other stuff. If you have tortilla chips you can use those. If you have tortillas, use those. If you have tostadas, guess what? You can use those too.

What you’ll need:

tortillas/chips/tostadas
salt
pepper
olive oil
avocado
lime
cilantro
the other half of that onion

Preheat your oven to 350°. On a baking sheet, add a whole layer of whichever kind of corn-derived item you have. If you have tortillas, cut them up first before putting them on the sheet.

Add olive oil, salt and pepper to all of the chips and pop the sheet into the oven for 15-20 minutes. 20 for tortillas and 15 for the other options.

I used el milagros because I buy so many of them!

And as you can see, I was also seasoning one of my cast irons.

While those are cooking, stir and sample the soup itself to see if needs any TLC. Just don’t eat it all like I did.

Cut up some avocado. Clean off your cilantro and trim the leaves off of that for toppings. Cut up a lime too for the same purpose.

You can let the soup simmer as long as you want but an hour will suffice. I did it for two because I was cleaning the house.

Once your soup is good to go, add it to a bowl. Pop your chips out of the oven and let them cool off for a moment. Add your toppings into the soup and your tortillas last. Now EAT!

You didn’t even realize I used parsley instead of cilantro. I ran out of cilantro. Radishes would have been cool for this too. Shit!