unBearablyGood: Hearty Slow Cooker Chicken Soup!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Hearty Slow Cooker Chicken Soup!

So today is officially day 11 of my Whole:30 challenge. I'm feelin good y'all! I'm just a tad bit bored with food at this point. Me, bored with food? Say what? I know, weird. It's just that I feel like I'm eating the same foods over & over again. I needed a game-changer. This soup hit the spot! I am once again excited to eat :)!

I have been wanting to make some homemade chicken stock for awhile now, and since it's Whole:30 approved and the weather here has ALMOST warranted soup (low 70's, it's Florida- I'll take it) I figured it was the time. I am so glad I decided to make the broth homemade, it's EASY. For real. The most tedious part of this recipe was chopping the vegetables. I am going to REALLY encourage you to make your own stock (because, like I just said it's EASY, tastes way better than store-bought & is healthier!) but if you just don't want to - you could sub around 4 cups of chicken stock. I also roasted my own chicken because I wanted to show y'all the whole process beginning to end, but you could totally buy a rotisserie chicken and skip that step. Easy peezy.

SIDE NOTE: You've gotta let the stock cook for a good long while in the crock pot, so make this the day BEFORE you want the soup :)

& by the way, if you brought this to a sick person- they will ADORE you. It's absolutely perfect for a sick day. And way, way healthy. I imagine it would freeze beautifully as well.

Ingredients:
1 Roasted Chicken
2 Garlic cloves, minced
1 Tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 Carrots, chopped
2 Celery stalks, chopped
1-2 Bell peppers, chopped
A few handfuls of Kale
2 eggs

Step 1: Roast your chicken. Or buy a rotisserie chicken. I stuffed my chicken with lemon slices and garlic cloves, covered it in olive oil, & seasoned with salt & pepper- then bake for 1 1/2 hours @ 400 degrees.

Pretty Chicken!

Step 2: Separate the meat from the chicken that you want to use in the soup later & save in an air-tight container in the fridge, throw everything else (minus the lemon slices) into the crock pot. This includes bones, skin (or you can totally eat that, I won't judge you), fat, & any sketchy pieces of meat you don't want in your soup.

My meat is the bowl to the left, everything else in the crock pot on the right

Step 3: Fill the crock with enough cold water to cover everything completely. Add garlic cloves, onion powder, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper, & red pepper flakes, stir to combine. Cover and cook on low heat for at least 12 hours. I started mine after dinner last night, and let it sit all night long.

Step 3: Transfer the contents of the crock to a bowl. Place a colander in the crock to strain out all of the bones, skin, fat, etc. that we DON'T want in our stock.

Step 4: Pour the stock over the colander into the crock. You'll be left with a pretty broth like this:

Step 5: I didn't take a picture of this (whoopsie), but it's easy. Pour the broth back into the bowl you just used, put the colander back in the crock and line with a cheese cloth. Pour the broth over the cheese cloth to strain the fat out. Then you'll have this:

Step 6: Add your carrots, celery, pepper, chicken (the leftover meat from the roasted chicken), and kale to the broth and give a big stir. Cover and let cook on low for an hour or so, until you're about ready to eat.

The kale will cook down, it takes a bit though- it is a very hearty green

Step 7: Put your 2 eggs in a bowl & whisk them together.

Step 8: We're going to add the eggs to the soup to thicken the broth a bit, but you will need to temper them first. Basically, you need to get the eggs to the temperature of the soup so they don't cook and become scrambled eggs when they hit the broth. To do this simply ladle some of the broth into the egg mixture and whisk together. Add a couple more ladle-fulls to the eggs until they are about the same temperature as the soup.