Chicken Soup Recipe
Some Call It Jewish Penicillin, I Call It Simply Delicious
While looking at the empty box of tissues, the glass of orange juice, and the cold medicines sitting on my desktop, I was longing for some comfort food.
And what better medicine for a cold than homemade chicken soup. So I dragged out my cookbooks and started researching how to make quick and easy but nutritious and delicious chicken soup. Good and good for you.
All my cookbooks agree that great chicken soup starts with great chicken stock but when it comes to making the broth, they offer a variety of choices. Some call for poaching a whole chicken in water with various chopped vegetables; others want you to remove and reserve the chicken meat while boiling the bones; and some suggest you quarter the chicken, sauté it, and add water and vegetables.
My favorite recipe comes from an article in Cooks Illustrated and uses a combination of all three methods.
This is a recipe for making chicken soup from scratch, not with leftovers from last night’s roasted chicken dinner (check out my recipe for Roast Turkey Soup for idea on how to make a leftover chicken soup).
The beauty of this soup is in its simplicity and how one bird makes one pot of soup. It calls for removing the breast meat prior to cooking and reserving for final preparations. The rest of the chicken will be used for making the broth. This is important to note because the chicken parts used to make the broth will be devoid of flavor after 45 minutes of cooking.
If you like this chicken soup recipe, check out my other soup recipe that feature chicken at: Tortilla Soup with Shredded Chicken . Or if you don’t want to go to all the fuss to make your own chicken soup from scratch, check out this recipe, Cream of Chicken Soup.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 whole chicken, breasts removed and reserved*
2 onions
2 quarts boiling water
Salt
2 bay leaves
1 large carrot
1 celery stalk
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves Ground pepper
*You could use the breast meat in this soup recipe but I prefer to cook them separately in another recipe. If you do use them, wait until the soup is almost finished and then add them back to the pot until they are cooked through. Should only take about 8 to 10 minutes.
How To Prepare At Home
Dice the onion. Peel the carrots and cut them as well as the celery into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces then mince the fresh parsley leaves.
Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed soup pot and sauté the breasts until they are light brown, about 5 minutes. Remove the breasts and set aside.
Add half of the onions and sauté until translucent, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove and set aside.
Cut up the remaining parts of the chicken (not the breasts) into small pieces to allow them to release their juices in the shortest time possible.
This is the hardest part of the recipe. If you have a meat cleaver, it makes the job easier, but if you don’t, do the best you can with a chefs knife.
Add the pieces to the pot, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes until no longer pink.
Return the onion to the pot, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the chicken releases its juices, about 20 minutes.
Add boiling water, reserved chicken breasts, 2 teaspoons of salt, and bay leaves. Cover and simmer until chicken breasts are cooked, about 20 minutes. Increase the heat if necessary.
Remove chicken breasts and set aside.
Strain and reserve broth. Skim fat from the broth, reserving 2 tablespoons to be used to cook the vegetables.
Add the reserved fat to the soup pot and sauté the remaining onions along with the carrot and celery for about 5 minutes.
When the chicken breasts are cool enough to handle, remove and discard the skin and bones.
Shred the breast meat into bite sized pieces and add to the pot. Add thyme and reserved broth; simmer until the vegetables are tender.
Season with salt and pepper, add parsley and serve. You can also add noodles, orzo, or small pasta shells and cook until tender.
I'm a work-at-home dad who enjoys cooking, learning everything I can about the culinary world and sharing it with you. To learn more about me...
First of all, I love your site. I find it to be an interesting read every time, which is something to be said with the mediocre content prevalent these days. I wanted to take a moment to share that I made this recipe for my husband as a comfort food pre-surgery. He had to eat pretty light food, so I took a chance that the broth would be robust enough on its own. It was (bonus: more yummy chicken and veggies for my servings). I added a splash of fish sauce to the vegetables and let it simmer for a minute before adding back the strained stock. I also added a few (very few) drops of fresh lime juice with the parsley before serving. I admit that I am frankly addicted to this Thai combination base, especially in chicken based soups and the freshness pairs well with the simple earthy flavor of your stock. Thank you for the great recipe.
Thank you Jennifer for your comments. Hope your husband’s surgery went well.