Homemade Chicken Soup From Scratch - 191 kcals

I love home made chicken soup from scratch. You are right, it is a lot of work, but well worth it.

About 2 x a year I will spend a day making homemade soups and broth, make 2 or 3 types of soup with it. I portion them out into individual servings and freeze them. A super yummy quick lunch during the work week!

If you want to up the flavor a bit, why not let Maillard help you?

Try browning the onions, carrots, and celery in the bottom of your stock pot (rough cut/diced first).

Another trick is to roast the chicken legs/thighs before cooling and removing the meat (save in the refrigerator for after the stock is completed). use the bones and remaining chicken bits to make your stock.

We make a similar soup quite often at our house. About 3 times a month we roast a Cornish hen for dinner. The breast we eat for that nights meal and after the bird cools I remove the dark meat and save it for soup later. The carcass (ugly word, great flavor) is used to make our stock. Care is taken to catch all the juices and gelatin (to add in the stock) by placing the cooling carved bird in a shallow bowl.

Just made your soup.....kind of.

The kids were hungry, nothing was thawed, perfect time to try your soup. From start to finish was about 35 minutes including the chicken breast thaw time.

I added potatoes, sliced the chicken breast about 3 mm thick, and used "better than bouillon" instead of making the stock. We keep a jar handy for quick meals and even had some sent to me when I was deployed. ( http://www.superiortouch.com/retail/products/better-than-bouillon )

Love your blog BTW.

for us lazies:

Broth:

3 liters of water
5 small yellow onions
5 carrots
4 celery stalks
3 large chicken legs w/ thighs (~1100 grams)
3 teaspoons herbes de provence
1 teaspoon rosemary
4 chicken bouillon cubes
1/4 bunch fresh parsley
salt
pepper

Soup:

3 small yellow onions
4 celery stalks
4 carrots
1/4 bunch fresh parsley
cooked chicken thighs, skin and bones removed (~380 grams)

Instructions:

This recipe involves two steps: creating the broth (the time-consuming part) and assembling the broth with the chicken and fresh veggies (the fast part).

To make the broth, cover the three large chicken legs with thighs in approximately 3 liters of water. Press garlic and roughly chop all of the vegetables for the broth. This is just for the flavor of the vegetables, so peeling and dicing is not necessary. I, for instance, quartered the onions and cut each carrot into four large pieces, as shown below.



Allow broth to simmer for 2-2 1/2 hours. It is ready when the chicken is falling off the bone and the broth has achieved a rich, hearty flavor. Strain all components from the broth, reserving liquid. Throw away vegetables and carefully pick through chicken, removing any skin bones.

Now, prepare the fresh vegetables for the soup by slicing carrots and celery into 1/4 inch rounds. Chop onions into pieces of roughly the same size and cook 30 minutes, or until carrots are tender.




Cooking time: 3 hours
Yield: 7 bowls of 3 ladles each
Calories per serving: 191
Cost per serving: Approximately €.70

I love rotisserie chicken, they make a great stock and save time as well.