This is my nutrient dense chicken soup for the soul. Aside from chicken and a good lot of legumes, it is chock full of vegetables meaning it’s high in fibre, full of many different nutrients and is entirely satiating. A head cold has been lingering the past few days so have been dosing up on bowls of this immune boosting goodness for lunch. I made a big pot over the weekend and it will last me for lunches for the whole week. It is also very freezer friendly, budget friendly and kid friendly too!
The beauty of this soup is that every time I make it, it is different. This is mostly dependant on what veggies I have in the fridge as the rest is pretty stock standard. The key is that there is no wrong way, so if you don’t have the specific ingredients listed below, just ad lib with what you have on hand – it will still work!
Serves 7-10 (depending on who you’re serving/how much). For comparison, I get a week of lunches from this pot.
Ingredients:
- 2 onions OR 1 leek, roughly chopped
- Knob of butter/drizzle of olive oil.
- Decent knob or 2 tablespoons of fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped.
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed.
- 4-6 carrots, roughly chopped
- 3 sticks celery, roughly chopped
- 1 zucchini, roughly chopped
- 4 potatoes, roughly chopped
- 4 stalks silverbeet, roughly chopped OR 4 stalks kale, stems removed and roughly chopped
- 2 cups frozen peas
- 2-3 chicken breasts, diced*
- Water to cover the ingredients**
- 1/2 packet dried legume and grain soup mix***
- Herbs of choice, I like to use oregano and thyme
- 1 lemon, juiced
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Method:
- In a large soup pot, melt butter or olive oil over medium heat.
- Sauté ginger, garlic, celery, silverbeet stalks (save leaves) and onion until soft and fragrant (about 5-7 minutes).
- Add carrots and zucchini and further soften.
- Cover the vegetables with water, add the chicken and potatoes. Season with salt and pepper/stock/herbs of choice. I like oregano and thyme in my soup.
- Add the soup mix and stir it in well. Bring the soup to a boil and then reduce the temperature to a long, slow simmer. Stirring occasionally. I usually let mine simmer away for at least 2 hours.
- Towards the end add the peas and the silverbeet leaves. Stir them through.
- I usually serve it with freshly squeezed lemon and a good lot of parsley for extra nutrients! But each to their own!
- Enjoy!
Notes:
*You could use the whole chicken if you wish. I have done that before but this bowl is using chicken breasts, so I have based the recipe of that. Really, you could use any part of the chicken.
**I dont tend to use a lot of stock, as I feel that the boiling chicken creates its own stock so it isn’t really required. If you would like to, you could add a few teaspoons gourmet stock or chicken stock for extra flavouring.
***If a coeliac, don’t opt for the dried soup mix as it contains barley. I follow a gluten free diet, but can tolerate small amounts of barley in this wholefood format. Other alternatives you could try are lentils, mini GF pasta or quinoa.
As the soup is left to cool for storage, it will thicken up as the soup mix expands. I love a thick soup, so don’t tend to add more water, but if you like yours thinner, you could add some to a warm pot. Don’t add water to a cold pot of soup, as you could misjudge the quantity.
Also, you don’t have to stick to these vegetables entirely. This is what I had for this particular batch. The batch before, I used kale instead of silverbeet and the stalks of my broccoli and cauliflower instead of celery and peas. Experiment and make it your own.