Chicken soup

Anyone have a good recipe for chicken soup made from scratch? I've never made it but would like to try it.

Re: Chicken soup

Get a whole chicken and boil it to make the stock. Take out the chicken and let it cool and strain out the other meat bits that might have come off the chicken. Add chopped veggies like carrots, onion, celery, parsnip (you can buy a package of soup greens in any supermarket) potato, and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. Peel the skin off the chicken and discard. Break off bite size pieces from the chicken (white and dark meat) and put back in the pot. Let simmer for 3 hours.

Re: Chicken soup

This is the easiest way for me. I used to use chicken with bones but so much more work. Now I just..
-put 2 large boneless chicken breasts in a pot

-add a carton of stock, some water, a few spoons of chicken base (or boullion, salt, pepper,

-add carrots, celery and onion (I leave them whole because I only like carrots in my soup, but like the flavor of the other veggies.)

Cook for a while (I usually cook on stove for like 2 hrs. medium heat)

When you like the taste of the broth and veggies are tender remove chicken and shred. Then pull out carrots and cut to desired size. add to chicken. strain the rest of the pot so you have a nice clean broth. return to pot and add the chicken and carrots.

I ALWAYS make tubettini, orzo, etc. in a separate pot so it doesn't get mushy. Then as I serve a bol of soup I add my pasta. May be a little different, but I top with a ton of grated cheese. SO GOOD!

Re: Chicken soup

Re: Chicken soup

The bones actually help with the flavor.

Here is a recipe and excellent directions that have been passed on to me from other generations.

Ingredients:

2 kosher chickens cut in 1/4s
one spanish onion
6 carrots cleaned,peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
6 celery stalks-washed, don't cut
soup greens (package at the store) or, one turnip, one parsnip, one onion, dill, parsley. Soup greens usually have the onion or a scallion but I just use one big spanish onion and discard the small one they put in there. Depending on how much parsley and dill is in the package you may want to get some more.
kosher salt (coarse salt)
white pepper (important because who wants black things floating in their soup)
garlic powder

In a big pot (I use a 10 quart or bigger) put both chickens in and fill with water that just covers the chickens. You may have to clean the chickens a bit to make sure there are no residual feathers or tags (empire puts a tag on one piece in each package)
Put on the stove on high and bring to a boil. Skim the residue that forms on top.

Peel and cut the onion in half and put it in along with the celery, carrots, turnip, and parsnip. You want to peel the parsnip like you would a carrot and cut the ends off the turnip and wash well before putting in the pot.

Season with salt and pepper and garlic powder. You can always adjust this later so don't go nuts. Sorry no measurement here. You have a load of soup there so you will probably want to adjust later. Light on garlic. It should be the least of the spices.

Let it boil on med high for about one hour. Taste for seasonings. Adjust if needed.

Take the parsley and dill and wrap it up in a bunch together with white thread. You can go around the bunch several times to make sure the bunch is tightly secured. You will want that later when you remove it.

Continue to boil for another 20 minutes.

Turn off the heat and let sit for about 30 minutes. It will be so hot that you want it to cool a little before separating out the soup from the vegetables.

Remove the celery, turnip, parsnip, parsely/dill bunch/onion and discard.

Then remove the carrots and set aside.

Then remove the chicken and set aside. It will be fall off the bone tender so get all the chickeny goodness out of the pot.

Strain the soup into another pot or large bowl. It will be heavy so get some help to hold the strainer. Use a strainer not a collander..think fine holes.

So now you have soup, chicken and carrots.

You can shred the chicken and add it or add the chicken to each serving or don't add it at all. I add it when I serve it. I usually make matzo balls and fine noodles with it.

Add the carrots whenever you want as well. The carrots are so yummy from this.

This sounds daunting but it's very simple. It just has a bunch of steps.

Let me know if you have any questions at all..this recipe I make a few times a year and learned it from my grandmother, aunt and my mom. Now mom says mine is better than all of them. I think it's because I use 2 chickens.

Good luck! Happy soup making.

Re: Chicken soup

Thanks for the recipes! I can't wait to try them. I'll let you know how it turns out.