Recipe for Chicken Soup

By Toby Helmstetter, LAc

The holidays were pretty mellow at my house, except for the fact that everyone in our house, including our guests, were sick with a cold. All in all it wasn't too bad (thanks to Chinese Herbs!), but it was definitely the perfect time to make home-made chicken soup. A good broth is the foundation of any good soup, and in this recipe you can use one you've got on hand, or the soup itself makes a nice broth by itself. The vegetables get puréed into the soup at the end, so if you have a hand blender, it'll be an easy job. But a Vitamix or blender works just as well; you'll just have to divide the soup and blend it a few cups at a time. This, by the way, is my mother's recipe. She reads this newsletter every month, so if you like the recipe, we have her to thank! She adds pastina (that teeny tiny pasta that looks like little stars) to each bowl, but it tastes perfect without it, too.

• 2 bone-in chicken breasts

• 4 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

• 2 large parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped

• 4 ribs celery, roughly chopped

• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped

• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and mashed

• Salt and pepper

Peel and chop your veggies and put them in a large soup pot. Place the chicken breasts on top and cover it all with water, chicken broth, or a combination of the two, so that the chicken is completely submerged. Bring the soup to a boil and skim off the foam, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer the soup for several hours, at least 2 and up to 6 hours.

Remove chicken breasts and bones from the soup. Pick the meat off the bone (it should fall away on its own by now) and shred it into strings or bits. Discard the bones and set the breast meat aside. Purée the vegetables in the broth until smooth, then return the chicken breast to the pot. Season with salt and pepper to your liking and serve. The soup freezes nicely, but is so delicious you may not have much left over. Enjoy!