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Cooking @ Home: Nothing beats homemade chicken soup
Making your own allows you to up the umami factor
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When the weather turns colder, nothing makes for a better end to the day than a nice bowl of soup and a good warm piece of bread. I’ve tried a lot of chicken soup recipes over the years, but all of them left me wanting something.
There were a couple of issues I saw with chicken soup recipes online. First, many of them relied on granulated chicken bouillon for an extra punch of chicken flavor. I have nothing against bouillon, but I figured there had to be a way to get the flavor I was looking for from actual chicken.
Second, a lot of the recipes I saw leaned into what are typically Italian flavors — flat leaf parsley, oregano, basil. These are all delicious flavors, but they aren’t what I think of first and foremost as flavors that pair with poultry. Sage and thyme are the flavors I most think of when it comes to roasted poultry, so why not use those in the soup instead?
Finally, most recipes didn’t have anything to bring a little umami to the final dish. Stacked up against the 6 cups of chicken stock in this recipe, there’s not much Worcestershire sauce in the soup, but believe me, you’ll definitely notice the difference if you make it without it. As a side note, I usually make this with chicken stock, but if you happen to have some leftover turkey stock hanging around as a result of a recent holiday — canned or homemade — this is a very good use for it.
Recipe
Savory Chicken Soup
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 leek, halved and thinly sliced
1 large red onion, diced
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 stalks celery, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
3 large carrots, sliced into 1/4 inch medallions
1 teaspoon sage
1 tablespoon thyme
1 teaspoon garlic powder
4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3 bay leaves
8 chicken thighs bone in skin on
1 48-ounce container chicken stock
1 lemon juiced
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
In a large stockpot or Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat while slicing the leek.
When oil is warm, add the leek and saute for a few minutes while dicing the onion.
Add onion to the pot with the salt and sweat while chopping the carrots and celery.
Add carrots, celery, sage, thyme, garlic powder, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir to combine.
Add bay leaves, chicken thighs, broth and lemon juice. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 90 minutes.
After 90 minutes, remove chicken to a plate. Remove skin and bone and dice or shred chicken. Return to pot and cook an additional 30 minutes or until carrots and celery are at desired tenderness.
Remove bay leaves and taste for seasoning.
Source: Alex Gallegos
I know you might be tempted to just skip to getting boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of taking the time to debone and de-skin hot chicken that’s been simmering in soup for 90 minutes, but trust me, it’s a worthwhile step. There’s a lot of good flavor and texture in both the skin and the bones that we can pull out with a hot bath, and the extra effort is well worth it in the end.
Lastly, a note about seasoning. Although you will probably still want to adjust your salt levels right before serving, I have taken to adding at least a heavy pinch of salt to the broth right before I start letting everything simmer. If I do that, I find that the vegetables get a chance to absorb some of the salty brine they’re sitting in for a couple of hours and, overall, I need less salt to make the dish taste right.
Stay warm out there and I’ll see you in 2025!
Alex Gallegos is an enthusiastic home cook who enjoys trying new recipes and learning new techniques. Find this recipe and others like it at platefulsofflavors.com.
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