Help me make soup. :)

Hi, I am a Diet Technician with a 2 year degree and 13 yrs experience in the field working with cardiac, kidney and diabetic patients.
As for the sodium - If do not have high blood pressure watching sodium is purely to prevent water weight gain. However if you drink 3 to 4 quarts of water every day this is not an issue either. So enjoy the broth, enjoy the soup. This is my favorite recipe.

2 - 3 pound chicken thighs with skin and bone.
Put these in a slow cooker or roaster and bake on medium heat for 1 hour. Add at least 1 quart water and cook for another 1/2 hour. Remove skin and bone. Set meat aside. To the liquid in the pan add:
1 large chopped onion
1 pound carrots
1/2 pound celery
4 cups chopped zucchinni
8 oz mushrooms any kind
1 or two peppers any kind your preference for heat
1 box broth
2 to 3 Tablespoons Tandoori seasoning or chili powder or whatever seasoning you like. I really like the tandoori
1 cup rice

Cook all of this together until it smells really good and all the veg is pretty soft. Add more broth or water if necessary. Add the chicken back in about 1/2 hour before you eat. Freezes really well. If you put in small containers in the fridge it will not spoil for about a week.

About 200 calls give or take for 1/10th of the recipe.

I make soup all the time. Especially chicken soup. I start with drumsticks because they are cheap and have good flavor. I put a little coconut oil in the pot and slightly brown the chicken legs. I usually pull the skin off first. Then after I remove the chicken and add onions, chili flakes, pepper, and salt and saute till the onions are caramelized. I make sure the all the bits from the chicken left over from browning the chicken are incorporated into the onion and not stuck to the bottom of the pan. Then I add one tomato finely chopped, a couple carrots sliced on the diagonal in 1 inch pieces and cook for a minute or so. Then add back the chicken legs and fill the pot with water. I never use broth. I don't see the need. There is so much flavor as it is.

After the carrots are half way done I add a large zuchinni also cut in 1 inch slices and cook until chicken is done. Then I pull out the chicken, cool a little, de-bone it, and put back into the soup. The last step is optional but those 5 minutes are well worth it later when packing soup to go. Makes it much easier to eat. As for the noodles, you can always premake soup and add noodles separately depending on your carb allowance for the day. If I have a lot of carb left over for the day I sometimes add rice to my soup.

You can buy shirataki noodles from the Asian food section at Walmart. They are very low in calories, made from yam flour. They are very good in soup. Also you could investigate Miso which is soy-based and makes a very good broth. Lots of recipes for Miso soup on the internet.

I add beans or lentils instead of potato to thicken. I'm just not a fan of potato-thickened soup (except for caldo verde, but the potato is the main constituent), and beans and lentils add protein and fiber as well. You can either add them uncooked (but soaked), or just tip them in from a can (I keep a box of ready to eat cooked beans in the fridge). It works particularly well if you blend/whizz the soup.

I make a ton of soups, but the method is pretty much what everyone else has described, sweat onions and other veggies over low heat until soft-ish, add any meat/beans and seasonings (but not salt, which you can add at the end for taste - it can make any beans tough) etc, then add stock (I use low sodium better than bouillon) then just leave it until it looks done. Blend it if you want.

I find it very soothing and particularly like different tastes. My thing at the moment is Persian-inspired soups..

Jicama is good substitute for potatoes. Similar texture and taste to water chestnuts, and a third the carbs of potatoes. Add it early to the mixture if you want the chunks soft.