Vegetarian Tortilla Soup Recipe

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup:

Step 1. soup base
Cooked and dehydrated beans (whatever you have…I used lentils on this trip)
Vegetables (see amazon link)
Dehydrated soy protein nuggets (I find these at a local asian market)

I soak a mixture of the above in a ziploc for about an hour in my backpack before camp. This helps speed up cook time when I get to camp. The exact water amount doesn’t really matter since you are making soup, extra water is fine. The soy nuggets should soak up a lot of water. Experiment with ratios till you find something that works. I just stick the ziploc in a side pocket in my pack.

At camp, boil the mixture adding a little water if you need to. Bring the mixture to a boil. Turn your stove off and let the mixture sit in the hot water for 10 minutes or so. You can sample it now and see how the texture is. If the veggies, beans, or soy nuggets are still chewy…let it soak a little longer. The amount of time that you cold soaked and how reconstituted the mixture has become may impact this soak time. If you’re in a hurry to eat, a little bit of chewiness is fine because you will bring it back to a boil one more time in the next step.

Step 2. Noodles
1/2 pack of chili ramen noodles
1 pack of chili ramen seasoning

Now bring the mixture back to a boil…add a little more cold water first if you need to. Also add half a pack of noodles from a chili ramen pack and an entire seasoning packet from the chili ramen pack. I find an entire pack of noodles makes it too noodly. So one ramen pack will serve you two nights, but you will need to rob the ramen seasoning packs at home and just toss the noodles when you are packing. Bring this to a boil and whenever the noodles reach the right texture, turn the heat off.

Step 3. Garnish
Tortilla
Fresh Jalapeno (or serrano)
Hard cheese
Hot sauce

Now add a tortilla ripped into bite size scraps. Also add fresh diced jalapeno and some hard cheese that you packed in. Top it off with some hot sauce packets (I used tabasco packets on this trip). Stir and enjoy

This is my go-to meal because I like the spice and it has a good mixture of protein and plenty of carbs (also the sodium in the ramen seasoning restores some electrolytes)…the cheese adds a little fat and you could even add a little vegetable oil too.