I’ve already tried the Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup (I made the wheat-free, dairy-free version), and my whole family loved it! These are recipes you will want to include in your regular meal-planning rotation, I promise you.
And we’re going to make it easy for you to do just that… we will have a free gift for you after our last installment that you will definitely want to take advantage of! Be sure to subscribe to one of the above blogs so that you don’t miss out on the announcement!
Now on to this week’s soup. It’s my turn, and I’ve had fun experimenting with Chicken & Dumplings in the crock pot. Can you believe, by the way, that I had never even eaten chicken and dumplings before? Not that I can recall, anyway. But it always sounded like such a delicious comfort food, and one I knew I would love.
And I was right! Delicious comfort food that I will definitely be making again and again. I started with this chicken and dumpling recipe at Goodbite.com, and modified it to make it easier and healthier. I don’t believe in sauteing things before I put them in the slow cooker, because that just adds extra work. I don’t do extra work. Keep it to the minimum! So this is simplified for anybody like me who doesn’t have time for extra steps. (I did make use of a stash of frozen cooked chicken – if you don’t have such a stash, you’ll probably want to saute your fresh chicken at least briefly before putting it in the pot.)
Speaking of saving steps, there is one thing about making soup that seems to take for.ev.er. and that is chopping up the ubiquitous celery and carrots that always end up in soup. I’ve recently discovered a trick that significantly reduces my chopping time and makes soup an even easier weeknight menu option. Here it is:
I am probably the last person in Christendom to have discovered this trick… but just in case, I’m sharing it with you. (So tell me, do you chop your veggies this way?)
Note: I used granulated garlic in the dumpling dough because I’m not a huge fan of fresh minced garlic in my baked goods. But if you prefer fresh garlic, you can just use the same amount (1-2 cloves) of fresh garlic in place of the granulated garlic.
Chicken & Whole Wheat Garlic Dumplings
Ingredients
2 cups cooked shredded or cubed chicken
3-4 carrots, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 cup onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
6-8 cups broth
1 tsp each rosemary, oregano, and parsley
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup cream
Dumplings:
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt
Instructions
Place chicken, vegetables, and broth in slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours or until vegetables are tender. Add herbs; add salt and pepper to taste. About half an hour before serving, stir in cream, then make dumplings. In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Beat egg lightly and stir into yogurt. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until you have a moist biscuit-like dough. Drop by large spoonfuls into the soup. Cover and allow to cook on high for 15 minutes or so, turning halfway through if desired.
This is not as QUICK as many slow cooker recipes, because there’s the added step (sorry, couldn’t eliminate that one) of making the dumpling dough. However, you can set the soup going in the morning, then make the dumplings about half an hour or so before dinner-time – that will still save you some dinner prep.
It is very EASY. The only thing to be aware of is not to add too much liquid to the dumpling dough, or you will have a mass of dough that never quite cooks through covering up a delicious pot of chicken soup. Not that I would know from experience or anything.
This is a good CHEAP dish. Soups are so good for using up odds and ends of meat and vegetables, and this is no exception. (If you have corn, peas, or green beans instead of the veggies I used, go ahead and throw ‘em in the pot!) The dumplings take the place of the pasta typically found in a chicken noodle soup with very little extra cost.
I love my HEALTHY changes to this recipe, namely the use of whole wheat flour. You can use buttermilk in place of the yogurt (which is what the original recipe called for, and is just as healthy), but I usually have yogurt on hand, and I found it made the perfect substitute. These dumplings are SO much better for you than the typical canned biscuit recipe most people use. And I think they taste a lot better, too!
I am so glad we’re doing this soup series now! For one thing, I am freezing my tail off even inside my apartment (I am no engineer, but I’m seriously beginning to wonder if that earthquake did some damage to the building structure! When it’s cold outside…. it’s cold inside!). Soup is just the thing to warm me up. For another, I have been in such a soup rut – potato soup and chicken noodle soup have been taking turns on my menu rotation for a while. Time for some inspiration!
It’s that time of year when the big stock pots come out, the broth starts simmering, and the mouths start watering. It’s soup season!
When the temperature starts dropping, I start putting “soup” on the menu once a week. It’s comforting and warming, and can be incredibly nutritious.
I’m so excited that for the next 6 weeks, a few lovely ladies and myself will be bringing you a whole bowl full of sizzlin’ soup recipes! Each soup will use good, wholesome ingredients! At the end of the 6-week series, we will have a surprise for you. *hint: it’s FREE*
Who needs a flu shot?This year, we’re fighting back with food instead! Each Wednesday we reveal a different food that is purported to support your immune system in the fight against cold and flu viruses. What’s more, each post will be opened up to all our readers, who will be linking up their favorite recipes with these key flu-fighting ingredients, so you can get lots of ideas for creative ways to serve them to your family! To be sure you don’t miss a single post in the series, consider subscribing to one of these participating blogs: Christian Mommy Blogger Day 2 Day Joys Intentional by Grace The Purposed Heart The Humbled Homemaker
So far, we’ve added green tea, breakfast, and pumpkin into our diets to help ward off the cold and flu. This week, we’re featuring a tried and true home remedy that has stood the test of time. Way back when, it was even thought powerful enough to ward off vampires.
No vampires around here, but cold and flu viruses are a plenty! That’s why you’ll need a hearty stash of garlic to include in at least one meal every day. Why garlic? For centuries, traditional people groups, including the Cherokees (according to Wikipedia), have used garlic as both a preventive and cure for the common cold. This traditional belief was given modern credence by a scientific study a decade ago that indicated that regular consumption of allicin (the main medicinal component of garlic in pill form) reduced the incidence of the common cold by half!
And although it’s also famous for its tendency to induce foul breath after consumption (how’s that for a nice way to say “it makes your breath stink”?!), garlic is well worth the consequences! It adds delicious depth of flavor to any savory dish, which makes it a rather enjoyable way to fend off the flu.
Unfortunately, around here, we have to limit our garlic consumption because my DH can’t tolerate very much of it, so I usually only use a clove or two at a time in any dish. For this special post, though, I went all out and used not one, not two, not even three cloves. Nope, I used 5! Half a head! I was living dangerously. Well, OK, not that dangerously. The recipe I was working from actually called for 5 heads of garlic, not 5 cloves. Um, yeah. Not gonna happen.
I am happy to report that this soup was just as delicious with 5 cloves of garlic as I’m sure it would be with 5 heads. Actually, I’m afraid that 5 heads of garlic in one dish would foul my breath for days, so I’m happy I stuck with the 5 cloves. You can determine your own comfort level. (Just warn me if you’re going for more than half a head!)
2 sausage links, chopped (I used al fresco chicken sausage)
4 cups chicken broth
1 tsp salt
2 small stalks rosemary
2 bay leaves
Instructions
Leave the garlic in its skin and place in a 400F oven for about half an hour. Remove from oven and cool until easy to handle. Squeeze the garlic from the skins into the slow cooker.
While garlic is roasting, prep vegetables and place in slow cooker, together with broth and seasonings. Cook on high for 4 hours, or low for 6-8 hours.
Cooking soup in the slow cooker isn’t necessarily QUICKer than putting it together on the stovetop, considering it’s a time difference of hours.
But it is EASY-er! I love making soup in the slow cooker because you can just drop everything in it and leave while you go about your business.
Soup is such a CHEAP dinner, I just can’t say it often enough! I put it weekly on my menu for this reason.
Aaaaannnddd, of course it’s HEALTHY, too, especially if you’re trying to fight the flu. But we’ve already covered that, so I won’t bore you with more of that.
See what my friends have cooked up for you this week:
Now it’s your turn to share your favorite recipes featuring garlic, but first, let me share one of my favorite entry from last week’s Green Tea blog hop: how cool is this? A chai tea concentrate made with green tea:
Chai Tea Concentrate
Feel free to link up any of your favorite recipes with garlic! It doesn’t have to be the main ingredient, just one of them, so it should be easy to find one or two. We’d love some more garlicky inspiration!
Please keep your entries limited to recipes including garlic, and please link back to one of the hosting blogs. Thanks!
Forget the flu shot! This year, fight back with food instead! I’m excited to be joining the following 5 amazing bloggers in hosting a 5-week series that will arm you with recipes to stay healthy this season!
Come back each Wednesday as we reveal five different foods that are purported to support your immune system in the fight against the cold and flu viruses that run rampant this time of year. What’s more, each post will be opened up to all our readers, who will be linking up their favorite recipes with these key flu-fighting ingredients, so you can get lots of ideas for creative ways to serve them to your family!
First up is pumpkin! Yeah, yeah, I hear you say. And I know, I know, I’ve really been quite obsessed with pumpkin this fall. But this is the last one, I swear. At least… I think so, anyway. I reserve the right to blog about anymore amazing pumpkin recipes I may come across in the future.
But there really is a good reason to include pumpkin in the list of foods that will help you ward off the flu this season, and that reason can be summed up in one word: beta-carotene. You know that gorgeous, rich orange color? It comes from the antioxidant called beta-carotene, which the body turns into vitamin A. How does this help you fight the flu?
According to the Mayo Clinic, one benefit of vitamin A – among many – is that it improves immune function. My personal opinion is that good ol’ vitamin A as it’s found in nature is a lot more effective at helping out your immune system than a shot that’s loaded with chemicals and fakes out your immune system.
Whether or not you get the flu shot, though, you’ll love this recipe for pumpkins and the extra vitamin A will do you good, too! I was inspired by this recipe for Armenian Pumpkin Soup, but I’m afraid I totally un-Armenia-fied it by switching out the spices and sauteing the onions with garlic instead of boiling them as suggested.
Pumpkin soup makes a nice stand-in for tomato soup, I think, perfect with a grilled cheese on a rainy day!
1/2 cup half-and-half, cream, or non-dairy substitute
salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
Heat some olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and onion and saute until fragrant. Stir in pumpkin, broth and spices. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in milk or milk substitute. Return to heat until hot throughout, but not boiling. Add salt and pepper to taste.
This soup recipe is QUICK enough for even the busiest weeknight meal.
Very EASY, too, if you have the pumpkin puree on hand.
Quite CHEAP, as well, with the minimal amount of ingredients.
And certainly HEALTHY, as we’ve already made clear!
Need more pumpkin inspiration? Be sure to check out the great pumpkin recipes and tips shared by the other amazing bloggers hosting this series with me. They have some great stuff that you don’t want to miss!
The truth is, this is how I usually make soup: not with a recipe but with a basic guideline or formula (hence the 1-2-3-4-5). It’s hard to imagine that about a year ago or so, I could count on one hand the times I made soup. For some reason, soup seemed kind of nebulous to me, a concoction I couldn’t quite pin down to definable details and measurements, so I avoided it. When I did make soup, I wasn’t 100% satisfied with it, so I rarely tried.
Then I realized how frugal soup could be, as well as how cheap and quick. Of necessity, I needed some very quick, ready-at-the-instant weeknight dinners, and soup in the slow cooker was a perfect solution. So I began to experiment with a variety of soup recipes and began to realize that they all had an awful lot in common. And then the revelation deepened and I realized that most soups fit around a basic flexible formula.
And voila! There was no more mystery surrounding soup! I had uncoded it! Now I can make practically any soup using this formula and it almost always turns out great. I’ll share the formula with you in case there’s anyone else out there who hasn’t figured it out yet.
Note: this “formula” is for your basic broth-based soups. Creamy soups, stews, and other kinds of soup use different ingredients and methods.
I almost always make my soup in the slow cooker, because even though it takes a longer time, it’s ready immediately at dinner time, so it’s perfect for those days when you simply don’t have time to make dinner when it’s time to eat dinner. Also, even when I set the burner on the lowest setting possible, soup simmering on the stove-top tends to evaporate a lot more quickly than I think it will, which is just not good when combined with my absent-mindedness!
So without further ado, here’s how to make a perfect pot of soup any day. Just dump all the following into a slow cooker and cook on high 4-6 hours, or low 6-8 hours:
1. 6-8 cups liquid
This liquid could be any kind of broth (chicken, vegetable, beef), preferably homemade. Or it could be tomato juice (or combination of both). You can even use just plain water with a hamhock for a great ham and bean or ham and potato soup. For a slightly creamier soup, you can add a 1/2 cup or so of milk or cream about 15-20 minutes before serving.
The magical combination of onion, carrots and celery always ends up in soup. I would add a fourth member to that group, namely garlic. Those four ingredients can almost always be found in a broth-based soup, and for good reason: they add a lot of flavor and give depth to the broth. It’s kind of nice that they add a lot of nutritional value at the same time! You can saute them in butter or olive oil before adding them to the slow cooker, but that’s not necessary. I usually use about 1/4-1/2 cup chopped onion, 2 cloves minced garlic, 2 medium chopped carrots, and 2 chopped celery stalks.
Beyond the mirepoix, exactly what vegetable you use is limited only by what is in season and in your pantry, fridge or freezer. Corn and tomatoes are popular additions to soup, as are green peppers (hot peppers if you’re going for a spicy flavor!). Root vegetables do very well in soup: potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and beets (borscht, anyone?) all taste great in soup. I also like winter squash, like delicata, butternut, acorn or even pumpkin.
3. 2 cups cooked meat
This is where leftovers come in really handy! Pretty much any leftover meats can be worked into a soup with delicious results. I almost always end up with chicken or turkey soup, but I have also used sausage, ham, pork and beef. You can use seafood, lamb or buffalo if you want! If you want to go vegetarian, no problem: just throw any kind of beans in there instead. (If starting with dry beans, be sure to soak them before adding them to the soup.)
4. Seasonings to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper are a given and can be added any time. Dried herbs, like the Italian favorites parsley, oregano, rosemary, thyme and the like, can also be added any time. Hot spices like paprika and cumin – great in a Southwest bean soup or similar – can be added at the beginning. I prefer to add fresh herbs at the end, so they maintain a bit of their texture and flavor.
5. 2 cups cooked grains (added at the end)
Most grains don’t do so well in the slow cooker, so it’s best to cook them separately and add them at the end. Again, leftovers shine here! Barley is the exception here, as you will see in the recipe below. Barley actually cooks up nicely in a slow cooker (on high 4-5 hours), and bulks up quite a bit, so all you have to do is add 1/2 – 3/4 cup at the beginning. Any kind of pasta and any kind of rice (brown, white, wild, etc.) work very well in soup. Quinoa is a delicious and trendy option.
As you can see, starting with this basic formula, you can create a million different tunes soups, by mixing them up, like this:
Chicken Barley Soup
6-8 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 cups shredded chicken
1/2 cup pearl barley
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup frozen spinach, thawed
handful chopped fresh parsley
handful chopped fresh basil
Place all the ingredients except for spinach and fresh herbs in the slow cooker. Cook on high 4-5 hours. Before serving, stir in spinach, parsley and basil, and cook an additional 10-15 minutes.
Like I said, this makes a QUICK dinner when it comes to dinner time. All the work is done earlier in the day when you (hopefully) have a little more time.
It’s very EASY, especially when you follow the formula!
Soup is SO CHEAP! One of the most frugal meals available, for sure.
It’s also super HEALTHY. I actually think of soup as a healthy diet in microcosm. It has all the right proportions of protein, carbs, and vegetables, plus plenty of liquid (essential for our bodies made mostly of water!).
Inquiring minds want to know: What kind of soup do you like to make?
I am home now from the Relevant Conference, and can I just say that I had an amazing time?! I don’t have the time or space on this blog to tell you about all the wonderful bloggers I met, new blogs I found to follow, exciting blogging tips I’m dying to implement, and even more than all that, surprising spiritual refreshment and challenge. Suffice it to say, it was a great experience and one I look forward to repeating next year!
I haven’t cooked a homemade meal in almost a week, what with getting ready, going to, and recovering from the conference, but before I left, I made some super delicious and very flavorful soup. It was initially a potato soup recipe (one of my favorite kinds of soup, by the way), but I altered it by adding squash… and a few more things.
This soup is made in the slow cooker, which I personally think is the best way to make soup. To me, it’s more convenient because you can pile all the ingredients in the crock pot whenever you have the time, and let it go all day if you need to; whereas cooking soup on the stove top usually takes a couple hours and requires more hands-on management. I rarely make soup on the stove, but I make it fairly frequently in my slow cooker.
One thing I love about soup is its flexibility. Don’t have celery? Leave it out (or maybe add some celery seed). Love onions? Double the quantity! Only have 5 potatoes? No problemo; your soup will be more broth-y, but it will still taste great! When making soup, don’t worry about exact ingredients and quantities: use what you have and adjust seasonings until you get the taste and texture you’re looking for.
Here’s my most recent version of Potato Soup (It never turns out the same way twice!). You will notice, by the way, that most ingredients in the recipe below are ranges rather than specific quantities. I did that on purpose to emphasize the flexibility of soup, but if that scares you, just choose one end of the range and stick with it throughout the recipe.
Squash Potato Soup
6-8 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/2 delicata squash, cubed (or 1-2 cups any cubed squash)
1/2-1 cup chopped onion
1-2 stalks celery, chopped
3-4 carrots, peeled and sliced
6-8 cups chicken broth
1-2 tsp salt
1/2-1 tsp pepper
2-4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled (optional)
1/2-1 cup milk or plain yogurt
1/2-1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 handful each fresh chives and parsley
Place vegetables, broth, salt and pepper into the slow cooker. Cook on Low for 6-8 hours or on High for 4-6 hours, until vegetables are tender. Use an immersion blender to puree some of the soup, being sure to leave about half the vegetables intact. Alternately, you can pour a portion of the soup into a blender and pulse for a few seconds, or you can just skip this step. Make sure heat is on Low (or Warm) and stir in bacon, milk or yogurt, cheese and fresh herbs. Let the soup sit for a few moments while you prepare the rest of the dinner. Sprinkle extra parsley or chives on each serving as a garnish, if desired.
Soup is not QUICK in the strictest sense of the word, since ideally it requires some time to blend all the flavors together. Using the slow cooker greatly reduces the amount of hands-on time required, however, so that you are free to go about your business during the day while it cooks.
It’s very EASY! Like I said, soup is flexible, and very difficult to ruin.
Soup is so CHEAP, too, because it’s largely based on broth (which you can make at home for practically nothing), and because you can adjust it to whatever ingredients you happen to have on hand. Many people even save leftovers of vegetables to throw into their soup, which makes it even cheaper and very frugal!
Another thing I love about soup is that it is sooo HEALTHY, provided you stay away from soups based on canned goods. I always feel so healthy when I plop all those vegetables into the pot: vitamins galore!
(Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon.com, which means that if you click on links in this blog that lead you to Amazon.com, I will receive a percentage of the profit from any purchases you make there in the next 30 days.)
What exactly makes a recipe a soup and not a stew? Or vice versa? The ingredients? The broth? The texture? Its place on the menu? Is it just in the name? Does anybody really know? Do you know?
I don’t. Not really, anyway. I just did some quick research to settle this question burning on my heart and mind and pretty much came away more confused than before. Perhaps I need to go to culinary school to get a definitive answer…
The only thing I could come up with is that generally speaking, stews are heartier than soups. There are apparently other factors but they seem to fluctuate depending on the kind or type of stew/soup in question. Here’s an article that explains it very well, but still didn’t help me decide if this recipe is a stew or a soup or what.
This is actually a combination of two different recipes, both labeled “stew” by the authors. While the ingredients were essentially the same, one called for significantly more liquid than the other, so I compromised. One was cooked slowly in the crock pot, while the other was finished on the stove top rather quickly. I opted for the slow cooker because that is a lot more convenient for me and does seem more stew-like to go along with the name.
I will confess that, although I found this stew/soup delicious, my DH was turned off a bit by the presence of the apples. This is a switch for us: normally I hate cooked apples, but for some reason, they didn’t bother me as much in this recipe. Personally, I think the unique contrast of the sweet apples with the savory meat and vegetables was intriguing and still comforting, as a soup/stew should be. Why don’t you give it a try and decide for yourself? And while you’re at it, let me know if it’s a soup or a stew!
Chicken Apple Stew/Soup
4 medium potatoes, chopped
4 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
3 small-medium apples, peeled if desired, and chopped
1/4-1/2 cup chopped onion
1 rib celery, sliced
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp salt
1 tsp thyme
freshly ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 cups cooked cubed or shredded chicken
2 cups chicken broth
1-1 1/2 cups apple cider or juice
Place the vegetables in the crock pot. Sprinkle the spices evenly on top, and then place the chicken next. Pour the broth and juice over all. Cook on high 4-6 hours.
You can certainly adjust the ingredients to your family’s tastes. You can increase (or decrease) the onion and garlic, or you could add some parsnips to the mix. If you want a thicker stew, decrease the liquid. Typically, this type of stew would be made with chicken breasts, but I used what I had (which ended up being cheaper!), which was shredded chicken from a previous meal.
This doesn’t seem like the QUICKest recipe I’ve ever made or featured here on my blog, if only because of all the vegetables that need prepping. The good news is that the time spent is all on the front end: once it’s loaded in the slow cooker, your job is done, and when it’s time for dinner, dinner is ready. This is the perfect recipe for those days when you have a little more time in the morning than in the evening (if that ever happens!).
Again, for the same reason, it’s not the EASY-est, either. On the other hand, it’s not exactly complicated. The hard part is chopping veggies, and anybody can do that.
It’s very CHEAP, especially if you do as I did, and use any old chopped up chicken rather than boneless skinless chicken breasts, which are rather expensive. I also used homemade chicken broth, and juice rather than cider (although this is the time of year to get cider at the best price possible… unfortunately, we had just enjoyed the very last drop of cider the day before I made this stew!).
This is a very HEALTHY soup, with all those vegetables. A couple servings of this soup, and you’ll have your quota of veggies for the day! OK, slight exaggeration, but still. Lots of vegetable goodness in this recipe!
Note: If you’re joining me from the Ultimate Recipe Swap at Life as Mom, Welcome! So glad you stopped by! If you like what you see here in this post, check out my “Fall Fest 2010” celebration with lots of great recipes, tips and other fun things to celebrate autumn.
Cold and flu season have hit our home a little early this year. I’ve been knocked out practically for two days now with some serious head congestion that causes a raging headache. Imagine combining that lovely feeling with the need to keep going, if only to keep up with a very fast almost-two-year-old (who, by the way, had this cold, too, but for far shorter and far less severely!). Yeah, it’s been fun around here.
Consequently, I’ve been craving chicken noodle soup. Last night I sufficed the craving with a can (shameful, I know, but hey, it’s cheap this time of year!) because I didn’t have the energy to make it myself. Today, however, I managed to drag myself into the kitchen to put all the ingredients in the slow cooker … before I went and took a nap! The nice slow cooker took over from there, and a delicious easy dinner was nearly ready at dinner time. All I had to do was add in the noodles, slice some crusty homemade bread and slice some fresh apples, too.
Bookmark this page and keep it handy, because trust me, at some point this fall and winter, you’re going to need it! Chicken noodle soup not only tastes great when you are feeling yucky; it also has healing properties. There’s some debate about exactly why it helps, but the fact remains that it does help, whatever the reason.
Thankfully, it’s blessedly easy, too, so you can, like me, even make it in the middle of a congested fog of the worst sort! Ignore those recipes (for this purpose at least) that call for a whole fryer or boiler chicken and lots of water. That will make some great chicken soup, but it’s too much work when you’re sick. All you really need is some broth, cooked chicken, veggies and noodles. Add a little seasoning and voila! Chicken Noodle Soup!
Let’s start with the broth. You can get it 3 different ways, starting with the cheapest:
*Homemade broth or stock. This is super cheap, made with leftover bones and veggie parts. I make some in the crock pot every couple weeks and store it in a pitcher in my fridge. I either use it within the two weeks or throw it out (doesn’t really matter; didn’t cost much to start with) and make a new batch with the bones and/or veggies I’ve collected in the meantime. This means I {almost} always have chicken broth on hand for recipes like this.
*Bouillion cubes, granules or base. This is certainly not the healthiest option, but it’s my emergency back-up plan. If I don’t have enough homemade stock for whatever recipe I’m using, I’ll supplement with this. If you don’t make a habit of having homemade stock around, this is your cheapest option.
*Canned or packaged ready broth. This is the most expensive option, and may or may not be healthy, depending on the brand. Generally speaking, the healthier it is, the more expensive it is. A lot of these have way too much sodium and most of them have MSG. If convenience wins out for you over nutrition and budget, then this is the option for you.
As for the chicken, I happened to have plenty of leftover cooked chicken thighs from dinner the other night that worked perfectly into my soup. Whenever chicken (either whole chickens or parts) go on sale for less than $1/lb, I buy a large package. Then, when I cook it up for dinner, I cook the entire package and save the extras in the freezer for nights like this. Sometimes I also incorporate the leftover chicken into my weekly menu, in which case there’s nothing left for the freezer, but in either case, it saves time in the end.
You can throw whatever veggies you have into your soup (I saw a recipe today that called for sweet potatoes and broccoli in the chicken noodle soup. Totally not my thing, but it proves my point!), but traditionally, carrots and celery are used. As for seasoning, keep it simple. Chicken noodle soup was not meant to be elaborate (it certainly can be, if you want it to, but it definitely stands alone in simplicity, too.).
As for noodles, my favorite would definitely be egg noodles – they go so well with this soup – but I have used pretty much every kind of pasta in chicken noodle soup. Case in point: today, I had no egg noodles. I was not about to go and buy them, because for one, I was totally not feeling up to that, and for another, that would completely violate all my principles about shopping once a week and using what I have on hand! So instead, I used some farfalle noodles from a package that had previously been opened. I used a total of 4 cups of uncooked pasta, but you can use as little as half that much. I like my soup noodly.
Sooo… here’s how my chicken noodle soup ended up today:
Chicken Noodle Soup for the Cold-Ridden Soul
8 cups chicken broth
2 cups chopped cooked chicken
4 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
3 celery stalks, chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 TBSP dried rosemary
1 TBSP dried parsley
4 cups uncooked pasta
salt and pepper to taste
Place the broth, chicken, vegetables and herbs in the slow cooker and stir to mix. Cook on low for at least 4 hours, preferably 6. Before serving, cook noodles separately according to package directions. Drain and add to soup. Add salt and pepper to taste.
To make it a complete meal, I served it with hearty bread and apple wedges (an apple a day keeps the doctor away, right?). Of course, you can serve it on its own for a light meal or a lunch.
Whether it’s QUICK or not completely depends on the ingredients you’re starting with, i.e., if your chicken is already cooked and your broth is already made or not. As it turned out for me today, it was very quick; all I had to do was throw the ingredients in the slow cooker, and then make the noodles closer to dinner time. I would recommend that you remember to turn on the burner when you go to boil water for your noodles. Then dinner will be ready at the time you intended and not half an hour later. Just sayin’.
It’s very EASY, too. Despite the fact that most people eat it from a can (me included on occasion!), chicken noodle soup is really very easy to make from scratch. In fact, it was part of my “home ec” curriculum in high school!
It’s certainly CHEAP, especially with homemade broth and leftover chicken. It can start to get pricey if you have to use store-bought ingredients, so homemade is definitely the way to go.
As we’ve already established, it’s very HEALTHY. Nobody knows why for sure, but certainly chicken noodle soup helps you feel better when you’re under the weather.
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QECH
* QUICK - because who has time for anything more?
* EASY - because I'm no gourmet.
* CHEAP - because who has money for anything more?
* HEALTHY - because you are what you eat.
Welcome back to Sizzlin’ Soups! Day2Day Joys, Christian Mommy Blogger, The Humbled Homemaker, Intentional by Grace, The Purposed Heart and myself have had a lot of fun bringing you our favorite heart-warming soup recipes.
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