Chicken Soup

There is nothing better than a bowl of hot chicken soup on a rainy day, with some crusty buttered bread. This was made with vegetables and pantry items I had at home, so feel free to adapt this with what you have in your fridge! This is also a freezer friendly meal, so perfect to make it the colder months.

Ingredients

• 2 litres of Chicken Stock
• 2 cups of shredded poached chicken, or a rotisserie chicken.
• 150g spaghetti
• half a bunch of celery stalks & additional leaves
• 1 brown onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely chopped.
• 3 carrots, finely chopped
• half a bunch of flat parsley
• 1 cup of corn
• 1.5 cups of peas

 Method

1. We are going to start by making a sofrito so, peel your 2 cloves of garlic, and finely chop 1 onion, 3 carrot and half a bunch of celery stalks and leaves.
2. Heat a large pot with 2 tablespoons of oil. Once the oil is hot, add in your onions. Then using a garlic crushed, crush your garlic and add to the pot. You can also finely chop your garlic if you don't have a crusher. 
3. Continually stir on medium heat until the onion is translucent. You don't want the heat too high or the onion will burn. Keep the heat on medium so the onion 'sweats' out all of its flavour.
4. Add in your carrots and stir well. Once they have warmed up, add in your chopped celery stalks (not the leaves). Stir on medium until the vegetables have 'sweated' out like the onion, and the kitchen starts to smell amazing!
5. Once all of the sofrito ingredients have got to know each other, pour in your chicken stock and bring to a boil. You can now also add in your chopped celery leaves. 
6. Whilst you are waiting for the soup to boil, shred your chicken and add to the soup.
7. Take your spaghetti, and with both hands snap them into 3-5cm lengths and throw into your soup. 
8. Once your soup is boiling, and the pasta is nearly cooked, you can add in any frozen vegetables of choice. This step is optional, I have thrown in some leftover corn I had in my fridge and green peas. I like to add these in at the end so they retain their bright green colour and don't become overcooked.
9. Season your soup with salt & Pepper, and top with some freshly chopped parsley, enjoy!

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If you are looking for more recipes like this one, check out my Chicken Recipes, or my Soups, Stews & Slow Cooked Meals.

Recipe FAQ's:

Can you freeze this soup?

Yes! This is a freezer friendly soup, to do so just make sure you cool down the soup first before freezing, and always label and date them so you can remember next time.

What pot did you use to cook this in?

I used a 7 litre cast iron Dutch oven pot so I could cook this in a large batch to be stored in the freezer later. But you can make this soup in any pot you have.

How can you make this Vegetarian?

I would use vegetable stock instead and remove the shredded chicken. You can even crack and swirl an egg into the soup, similar to my Tomato & Egg Drop Soup recipe, which adds these really pretty ribbons, and turns it into a heartier soup without meat.