Baby, it’s cold outside! There haven’t been any threads in the last year-ish that are specifically about chicken soup. What’s your recipe? Variants? Quick chicken soup versus planned-in-advance chicken soup? Stovetop versus crock pot? Let’s have them all!
Big pot of water
Salt
Black pepper
1 green pepper
1 onion
1/4 chicken
1 carrot
1 bunch of dill
Boil until it smells too tempting to not eat. Enjoy!
Five gallon stockpot.
Carcasses (bones and skin) from two roasted chickens (I save them in the freezer, but sometimes I get impatient and make it from one. Use less water in that case.)
One or two yellow onions, including skin
A couple of carrots, cut into large pieces
Two or three dried red chiles
Handful of black peppercorns
Several cloves to half a head of garlic, peeled
Some bay leaves
Bring to a boil, then drop to a simmer for four to ten hours. Cool a little, strain, then chill to pick the fat off the top.
For the actual soup, I like it simple. I save the cooked chicken meat (which didn’t go into the stock, otherwise it’s way too cooked), sautee some button or crimini mushrooms, maybe rehydrate some dried ones, and cook a serving’s worth of orzo or other small pasta. Top with excessive amounts of freshly grated parmesan, romano, or other nice hard aged cheese.
Mmmmm.
Oh, I forgot the salt. I do not salt stock, but I do throw some in the finishing soup as the pasta is cooking. It’s very boring without salt.
Open Campbell’s soup can with your favorite opener.
Plop gelatinous mess into pan. Add water.
Heat.
Dump crackers in it. Eat crackers before they get soggy.
Enjoy!
Don’t forget to taste the love. It’s IN there, baby!
This is my kitchen sink chicken soup; I also make much simpler versions, but when it’s cold and wet outside and I’ve got nothing pressing to do on a weekend afternoon, this is supreme comfort food.
First, start a gallon bag in your freezer, and whenever you have leftover trimming from any other use of chicken (skin, bones, whatever), put it in. When the bag is nearly full, you’re ready to think about soup. Barring that, just buy extra chicken and expect to save some of the boiled meat aside for chicken salad or some such.
For the soup, take the largest stock pot you have and put the aforementioned bag-o-parts in, plus a whole chicken or two (depending on size). I usually break the carcasses down a little bit just to make later steps easier. Add one or two yellow onions, quartered, a couple of stalks of celery plus all the leaves and useless short bits from inside a bunch of celery, a couple large carrots cut into large chunks, a few glugs of dry white wine, and then add water until the chicken is covered. Heat on high until it comes to a simmer and then turn down the heat to maintain a slow simmer.
While the pot starts to heat, make a bouquet garni with some cheesecloth and kitchen twine; put in white peppercorns, bay leaf, basil, etc. (basically, whatever you like.) Add to pot. Add some salt too, so the chicken gets seasoned a bit while it cooks.
Once the soup is on a low simmer, start skimming the foam and fat off the top with a shallow cooking spoon. Doing this now instead of later gives a clearer stock. This is really only necessary for the first 20 minutes or so, as after that things start to clear up and you can get the rest of the fat later.
While waiting for the hour to pass, cut up the veggies that you want in your soup. My rotating ingredient list includes mushrooms, green beans, roasted red peppers, red bliss potatoes, barley, basmati rice, onions, celery, carrots, and whatever looked good in the produce aisle that day.
After an hour, remove the chicken to a bowl to cool and then strain the stock. If there’s any substantial fat this is the time to remove it. Return the stock to the pot and bring to boil to reduce it a bit (maybe by a quarter volume or so.) Start checking for seasoning at this point and add salt (and MSG, if desired) to taste. Once it’s reduced a bit turn the heat down, add the veggies, then bring back to a simmer.
While you wait for the veggies to get tender, start breaking down the meat from the bones and chopping it up. When the veggies are done, add meat to pot, return to simmer, stir in chopped up scallion greens from a bunch or two, and serve.
I cheat and add chicken bullion cubes. Maybe it’s because I was raised on Campbell’s, but it doesn’t taste chicken-y enough without it. I usually add sage and thyme too, and garlic.
I’d like to know how the local Chinese restaurants gets so much flavor in their soups. I swear, they use three chickens for every bowl of soup. It’s like essence of chicken. Distilled chicken. Yummy.
INGREDIENTS
One kosher chicken (chicken must be kosher or there is no point to soup)
Two carrots peeled and cut into small cubes
Two stalks celery cut into small cubes
1 bunch fresh dill
Four chicken feet (found at Chinese markets) or (for the squeamish) two turkey wings
One half onion peeled but not sliced
One bay leaf, some peppercorns and salt, four cloves garlic and a seriptitious bullion cube
Four quarts water
One very large stock pot
METHOD
Throw all ingredients in the pot. Let come to boil and skim every half hour. Leave in pot for at least four hours. Continue to skim. Drain stock in one bowl and other ingredients in another. Throw out bay leaves, dill, garlic and chicken bones.
Stick stock in refrigerator overnight. The next day gently warm the stock and add in chicken, carrots, celery plus rice or noodles. Serve with a few chopped scallions.
Freeze the rest of the soup in ice cube trays for use in other dishes.
OPTIONAL
Matzo balls
Celery root, rutabaga or parsnip in place of/as an additional to carrots and celery
One husband to empty and clean stockpot and complain that parsley should be used instead of dill. He is Irish and I am Jewish so I generally mock or ignore him depending on my mood.
Whole chicken or a bunch of chicken parts leftover in the freezer
1-2 carrots
1 parsnip
1 celery root
black peppercorns
parsley and/or celery leaves (sometimes wrapped in a bouquet garni, along with sprigs of fresh thyme and bay leaf)
one whole large onion, skin on, cut in half (the skin gives the soup a lovely color)
Water to cover.
I stick everything together, bring to a boil, then back down to a simmer. Do not boil your soup past the initial boil! Skim the scum off, and cook for 4-8 hours. Strain, skim off the fat, and you have chicken stock. I’ll shred the chicken from the soup and put it into the stock with some stringy egg noodles, or I’ll just use the stock as the basis for chicken soup and add a fresh batch of chicken for the actual soup. Be sure to add salt to taste. If your soup doesn’t taste chickeny enough, you either didn’t simmer long enough, didn’t use enough chicken, or undersalted.
I usually make Jewish Mother Chicken Soup, which is just broth with cut-up meat and optional rice or noodles. But I have been trying some variations. Using a crockpot, I added some sweetened, condensed milk (not a whole can), some half-and-half, finely chopped red & green bell peppers, chopped chives, and some cheese flavoring to the broth stock. Salt & pepper to taste.
Oh, and I used some boneless chicken breasts, cut up when everything was cooked.
The milk base makes quite a different kind of soup, but it was really good. Now if I can only adjust the proportions to make it better.
I make chicken soup for every Friday night dinner that I cook, which is what I grew up with. It’s the only traditional Jewish food I insist on for my Shabbos table (aside from the obvious challah), and I only rarely make kugel, gefilte fish, etc. (A few years ago, my mother asked us if we could occasionally have something else as a meal starter. The answer was a quick, unanimous NO.)
For each chicken (each chicken makes about five servings):
Water to cover chicken 1.5 times.
5 carrots. Up to 2 may be replaced by parsnips. The big, fat loose carrots taste much better, and you don’t need as many of them, maybe 2-3, but more can’t hurt. Chunked into 1-inch pieces (if skinny) or something similar to that in volume if large.
2 good-sized stalks celery, in about 2-inch lengths
1 onion, peeled and x-ed but not cut up
1 clove garlic, peeled but whole
1 half-inch chunk of peeled fresh ginger (critical!)
1 bay leaf
Salt - not much, as occasionally a kosher chicken will be quite salty and I don’t want to oversalt. My general philosophy is that it’s always better to undersalt, as it’s easy to add more but tough to take it back out.
Freshly ground pepper.
Fresh dill, if I have it, in cheesecloth so that it doesn’t get green bits everywhere
Dried thyme, if I am so moved
Egg noodles, cooked separately, then added before serving, because I don’t like matza balls. It helps stretch the soup, and most people seem to like having a starch in their chicken soup.
Bring the water to a simmer, with a bubble rising every second or so, but not to a full rolling boil. Add the veggies, skim the icky foamy stuff that rises to the top, and let it cook uncovered until it smells rich, at least three hours, frequently more like four. If you refrigerate it, it should gel; it’s also much easier to skim off the fat that way.
My chicken soup is one of the few things I cook that I’m willing to brag about. It’s good.
Which ever recipe you settle on, forget the noodles, matzo balls, etc., and drop some Bisquick dumplings on top–yummy!
I’ve mentioned this many times, but it’s important. If you plan to put rice or pasta in the soup, do not add it to the cooking pot. It will eventually become bloated, tasteless and unpleasant. Cook separately, heat your soup portion and pour over the starch in the bowl. The other good advice is to add a few fresh herbs to your bowl before pouring the hot soup in. A real burst of flavor and aroma is the result.
I am afraid I don’t really use a recipe for much of anything. My chicken soup:
Strip the chicken carcass of most of the meat leftover from your dinner.
Drop the chicken into a big pot and cover with water. Add two or three Bay leaves.
Bring to a boil and lower down to a simmer, leaving it go for a loooong time. You’re done when the bones snap in half easily. I let it go most of a day, if I can.
Strain the chunks out of the liquid. If you have time, set the pot into the fridge overnight so that you can skim the layer of fat off of the top. It may turn into a nasty-looking meat jello-like substance, that’s GOOD. It means that it’s chock full of collagen, which is what thickens the broth.
Strip the remaining meat from the carcass and chop it into small pieces and toss into the soup pot. Use whatever remaining chicken you have in the fridge and do the same with it.
Bring back up to a simmer and add sliced carrots, potatoes, celery. Add a handful or two of barley, and season to taste (I just use salt and pepper).
I serve this with toast or whatever we have handy for small bread products.
I agree with you if I’m making a big pot of soup. If it’s just one meal for me and I intend to eat all of it, I’m OK with cooking the noodles right in the stock. It makes it a little starchier, true, but I like the flavor of pasta cooked in stock, so I figure it’s a fair trade. I like them al dente anyway, so there’s no way it can sit with a pasta in it.
I’ll have to try the fresh herb technique you mention though. Sounds good.
MSG
Thank you so much. I came in here specifically for this info. The first time I made chicken soup I made the mistake of putting the egg noodles in the soup to cook and it was nasty. Now I just use the “pour over before serving” method. So nice to be validated by a person named Chefguy!!
I think of parsnips as the defining ingredient that makes a chicken soup taste Jewish. Is this your belief as well?
I did an experiment not long ago and used those premade frozen pierogies instead of noodles… absolutely wonderful.
Probably if the Jews you knew of put parsnips in their soup, you think of parsnips as being essential. On the other hand, I do it, and many of the Jews I serve (all of whom have eaten plenty of Jewish-made chicken soup in their lives) don’t recognize it at all. And for me, the defining flavor, the one that makes a chicken soup taste right and proper, is fresh ginger, which ain’t exactly traditional.