Words are helpful to describe food and cooking, but seeing the process is even more powerful. We wanted to give you a glimpse of what a recipe from Pretty Simple Cooking looks like in person, and we chose this Chipotle Black Bean Tortilla Soup. It’s one of our favorite quick soups that turns out beautiful with all the garnishes.  Take a look below–and tell us you dance in the kitchen too?

Did you catch my Salt Bae impression?

As you saw, one of our secret ingredients to amp up vegetarian dishes is adobo sauce from a can of chipotle peppers. This ingredient is in several of our recipes in the book: for example, our red and green enchiladas, and the chipotle aioli sauce for cauliflower tacos. All you need from the can is a bit of the sauce (not the hot peppers!). Typically, we freeze the remainder of the can for later use. Using only a tablespoon of the adobo sauce gives this tortilla soup big flavor without making it overly spicy.

If you can find it, frozen fire-roasted corn brings big flavor to the tortilla soup. And what sends it over the top is the garnishes: homemade tortilla strips, radishes, cilantro, and a squeeze of tangy lime, making for a healthy, vibrant bowl meal.

This chipotle black bean tortilla soup is vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free, so it fits a variety of diets. I showed this video to a room of 5th graders on Career Day and it got VERY enthusiastic responses (much more than I would have imagined!). We’ve tested it on all sorts of kiddos so we think we can slap the kid-friendly label on it as well.

The recipe is available in our book, Pretty Simple Cooking! We hope you enjoyed the peak behind the scenes into our kitchen.

This recipe is…

Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, plant-based, and dairy-free.

For more about the book

Pretty Simple Cooking Cookbook is Here!

A Couple Cooks - Recipes for Healthy & Whole Living