Sopa is a traditional Mexican soup. It is an easy dish that is often made as a snack or a side to a main course. It is usually called sopa de fideo/pasta depending on which type and shape of noodle or pasta you use. You can add plenty of vegetables or different meats and spices to kick up the flavor. Sopa is just the basic soup and when you add more ingredients is when the name changes, for example, sopa de vegetal and sopa de pollo. However, these kinds of sopa are different from chicken soup and vegetable soup because it uses the pasta.
A few years ago, the restaurant Matador, a Mexican eatery, in downtown Phoenix was popular and served sopa de vegetal. It was delicious and I would go there with my Nana and eat that dish often. It had fideo, tomatoes and carrots.
However, when the restaurant closed its doors, I could no longer find a Mexican food restaurant that offered this dish on the menu. But since my mother made this dish regularly, I decided tor recreate it using my own recipe and see if I could match the same flavor profile as Matador did with their sopa.
Sopa is simple. The pasta used already comes prepackaged. It is at most grocery stores in the Latin American food aisle. Just one package(7 ounces) will do the job. You will also need:
- 5 diced tomatoes or 1 can diced tomatoes(14.5 ounces)
- 4 cups of liquid (water or chicken stock)
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, chopped finely
- 1 cup of fresh, chopped cilantro
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon of olive oil
- 2 sticks of celery, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
Start of by heating the olive oil. The key to making this recipe successful and authentic is to fry the pasta before actually cooking it with the other ingredients. Once the oil is heated, add the chopped onions and garlic. The flavor will infuse the oil. The onions should be chopped in strips. Then add the pasta and stir it frequently so it won’t burn. This will take about a minute and you will see the color change.
For the tomato sauce, you can use a can and it will be easier. However, for the authentic taste, use fresh tomatoes. In either a food processor or blender, add the tomatoes with chicken stock or water. Add some salt and pepper then blend it all together. Add it to the pasta, onions and garlic.
To make this sopa de vegetal, add the carrots and celery. Make sure that the tomato mixture covers the vegetables in order for them to properly cook. Then cover the sopa and let it cook for 20-30 minutes or until the pasta and vegetables are cooked. It would help to cover the pan you are cooking the sopa in. Be aware that sopa absorbs the water/tomato mixture so you may need to add more water and stir often so it won’t stick to the bottom of the pan. And don’t use a small pan because it will eventually spill out.
You may need to add more salt and pepper. You might also want to try adding a cube of chicken bullion to enhance the flavor especially if you are not using chicken stock.
I like my sopa with broth so I add water throughout to thin out the tomato mixture.
You can top it off with fresh cilantro, cheese, or whatever other toppings work well for you. This truly is one authentic Mexican dish that is simple for anyone to make. And it is as cheap as it gets! Yet, it still has those delicious flavors that a five-star dish would. I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I did. It was nice to know I could recreate this dish after years of having it in a restaurant. Enjoy!
For The Love of Food 