BEST Chicken Soup Recipe
Best Chicken Soup - The perfect recipe to make on a relaxing, cozy Sunday afternoon - it is seriously the BEST chicken soup recipe! Feel free to add noodles if you want!
Ingredients
Broth:
- 5-6 pound whole roasting chicken fresh or thawed
- kosher salt and ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons ghee softened (sub grass-fed butter, olive oil or vegan butter)
- 1 yellow onion quartered
- 1 celery stalk cut into 4-5 pieces
- 2 medium carrots cut into 4 pieces each
- 1 garlic head cut of the top (or smash approx. 5-6 cloves)
- 8 cups chicken broth you can also use 8 cups of water to make broth completely from scratch OR you could do 4 cups broth + 4 cups water. If you use broth your soup will only turn out that much richer. Just check your ingredients on the broth if concerned with Whole30
- 3-4 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1-2 fresh sage leaves
- 1-2 sprigs fresh oregano
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- cooked, shredded chicken from previous steps
- 1 sweet yellow onion diced
- 6 medium carrots peeled and sliced
- 4 celery stalks sliced
- 1 bay leaf
Optional Additions:
- gluten-free noodles
- 1 parsnip diced
- 1 sweet potato diced
- 1 turnip diced
Instructions
- Prep: Preheat oven to 375℉.
- Roast Chicken: Place 5-6 pound whole roasting chicken in 5½ qt. dutch oven and rub all over with softened ghee. Sprinkle with generous amounts of kosher salt and ground black pepper to coat. Place quartered onion, carrot chunks, celery chunks and 1 garlic head around the chicken. Roast in the oven, uncovered, for 1½ hours.
- Boil: Remove from oven and place on burner. Add 8 cups chicken broth (and/or water) and turn heat up to high. Add 3-4 sprigs fresh thyme, 1-2 fresh sage leaves, 1-2 sprigs fresh oregano, 1 sprig fresh rosemary, 1 bay leaf and 1 tablespoon black peppercorns. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and cover. Simmer (covered) as long as possible - if you used chicken broth I would suggest 2 hours - if you used water and broth I would suggest 3-4 hours - if you used all water I would suggest 4-6 hours.
- Remove Chicken: Carefully lift the cooked chicken out of the pot and set aside to cool slightly.
- Strain: Pour the remaining items and broth through a fine mesh strainer and into a large bowl, pot, or container. Discard the cooked vegetables (they will be very soggy and not good for much after cooking for so long). Place strained broth back in your dutch oven.
- Shred Chicken: Once chicken is cooled enough, remove all the meat and place it in the broth (Note: only add in the amount of meat that you want in your soup. If you want a thicker, chunkier soup use it all, but if you want more of a broth-based soup then reserve some of the chicken for another purpose.)
- Bones: Option to discard the chicken bones or feel free to keep the chicken bones to make bone broth!
- Finish Soup: Once the chicken meat is back in the broth, add the diced onion, sliced carrots, sliced celery and 1 bay leaf. Taste and add salt and pepper, to taste, a pinch at a time. This would also be the time to add any other ingredients you want (sweet potato, turnip, parsnip or noodles). Let simmer approx. 8-10 minutes or until your vegetables are cooked, but still firm.
- Serve: Enjoy right away and store any leftovers in the fridge!
Video
Notes
- Adaptable: This is one of those recipes that you can adapt very easily to fit what you like! My preferred method is to roast with ghee, use broth, simmer on low 2 hours (but I have also only simmered for 30 minutes - 1 hour and it is still amazing!).
- Time Saver: Since the chicken is already fully cooked you can reduce the cooking time in Step 10 of the Broth Instructions to whatever works for you!
- Bone Broth: you could add bone broth in Step 7 of Broth Instructions to make it extra gut-healing!
- Noodles: If you are adding noodles I would recommend cooking them separately beforehand and then adding to the soup - otherwise as they are cooking they will soak up all of the broth.
- Homemade Broth Version: I touched on this in the recipe card instructions, but wanted to highlight again - feel free to use water instead of broth in Instruction #7. It will need to cook much longer and you will need to add additional salt, but you will end up with some delicious homemade broth! If you have the time I highly recommend!
- Whole30/Paleo: If you are concerned with Whole30/Paleo just check those ingredients in your broth!
Nutrition
Calories: 254kcal | Carbohydrates: 7g | Protein: 19g | Fat: 17g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 6g | Trans Fat: 0.1g | Cholesterol: 78mg | Sodium: 675mg | Potassium: 377mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 6952IU | Vitamin C: 6mg | Calcium: 43mg | Iron: 1mg
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