On your cutting board, rougly chop two small to medium onions or one large onion.
In your soup pot or dutch oven, melt some butter.
While butter is melting, add the minced garlic.
While butter is melting and after garlic as been in the pot for about 30 seconds to one minute, add your onions. Sautee the onions and garlic for about 5 minutes or until onions are looking translucent. Add the pepper, salt, tarragon, parsley and combine with the onions/garlic.
Add the chicken broth and continue to cook for another 25 minutes.
While your soup is simmering, in a frying pan, chop/dice your jalapenos and sautee in butter for about 3 to 5 minutes. Add your cumin, chili powder and red cayenne pepper (optional) and diced chicken and cook for about 10 to 15 minutes or until chicken is done. Set aside until soup is ready.
In a small bowl, combine the corn starch and water to make a pourable slurry. (If you would like to substitute here, use 1/2 cup of heavy cream instead of corn starch). Whisk for about a minute or so to combine the slurry (or cream) with the broth.
Your soup should look like this so far. Honestly, it's good to eat just like this as a chunky, creamy onion soup, but I recommend either using an immersion blender or throwing this in a regular blender to make it creamy and smooth.
Blend the contents of the pan with your immersion blender as shown or carefully blend in your regular blender until smooth and creamy.
Your soup should look similar to this.
Add your chicken / jalapeno mixture (including all of the pan drippings) into the soup and combine. Cook for about 5 more minutes.
To serve: Take 3 tortilla chips and crumble into a bowl. Take your soup and ladle over the tortilla chips. Swirl a tablespoon (or more if you like) of sour cream or ranch dressing and swirl into the soup. Add a few slices of jalapeno peppers on top and enjoy!