If you want a tortilla soup that’s vegan (without the garnishes), this is the recipe for you. Unlike most tortilla soup recipes, Qdoba doesn’t use chicken broth for the soup base. So I tried vegetable broth, but every variety I tried threw the whole recipe off, and I was about to give up. As a last resort, I tried the soup again with Knorr vegetable bouillon cubes, and…bingo. The bouillon added the same flavor as the original Qdoba Tortilla soup and all was good in the world.

For this soup, you’ll need to roast some peppers, but after that the recipe is a straightforward chop-and-simmer, and you should have a very easy time with it.

This soup gets garnished with sour cream, shredded cheese and fried tortilla strips, but you can upgrade your soup by adding chopped adobo chicken (from the TSR version of Qdoba Adobo Chicken), black beans, rice, pico de gallo, and minced cilantro. Now you’ve just cloned the chain’s Loaded Tortilla Soup, and you’re a better person because of it. 

Get the full recipe in Todd Wilbur's "Top Secret Recipes Unleashed"  cookbook exclusively on Amazon.com.