The Perfect Chicken Soup Recipe -- Gluten Free, Allergy Friendly, Paleo, and Delicious

Growing up, in my house we never, ever, ever had real chicken soup. We had mushroom barley, "seaweed and fungus" soup (aka shitake mushroom and wakame Asian soup), onion soup, hot and sour soup, mulligatawny, etc. Just not "plain old chicken soup". Nothing as "boring" as chicken soup. Our school lunch had "chicken noodle soup" made with vegetarian consomme broth. On really rare occasions, the closest we'd ever get would be matza ball soup with a "chicken broth" based, but the chicken flavoring was from soup mix. I only ever had real chicken soup occasionally at friend's houses. 

Once I was an adult and living on my own, I started making all sorts of different soups and chicken soup was one of them. I learned that the "trick" to get the chicken to flavor the soup so you didn't need soup mix for the flavor was to cook the chicken for a long time. Hours even.

And so, I made chicken soup. Never with soup mix. With all sorts of different vegetables. With different additives and different seasonings, sometimes with hawaij, sometimes with soy sauce, sometimes with pumpkin and corriander, sometimes with lots of dill... And chicken soup is always yummy. It's hard to actually make it taste bad, per se. It's just that sometimes it is better than others. Sometimes it's so good that you want bowl after bowl. 

And that's how this one is.

My friend Michelle, makes absolutely phenomenal chicken soup. Every single time I go there, it's all I want to eat. She and her kid talk up how good my food is, but her chicken soup always beats mine, hands down. One time I asked her how she made hers so good, so rich and flavorful, and she told me how simple it was. She learned it from her mother, taught me, and now I am passing this knowledge on to you, so that you can also make perfect chicken soup.

The biggest thing about making chicken soup that I learned was this- less is more when it comes to chicken. Part of the reason my chicken soup wasn't tasting as good as some others I had was because I was putting too much chicken in, and the chicken flavor was just so overpowering. You also don't need all the other herbs and spices and whatnot, as long as you follow this.

A small amount of chicken. No more than half a package of chicken in it, ideally even less. Orange and green vegetables. Twice as many orange ones as green ones. It's better if there are two different types of orange vegetables, but it isn't necessary, as long as the quantity is correct. Cook it for a long time. Add a lot of salt. 

That's basically it. The green vegetables add depth of flavor, and the orange veggies add sweetness, the chicken adds an umami, and the salt brings it all together. So its on the sweet end of chicken soup types and extremely flavorful.

It is more an art than an exact science, though, and you can change it up. You can change up the orange veggies, using either carrots, butternut squash, pumpkin, or sweet potatoes, or ideally a combination of two or more of those, as long as the quantity is double the quantity of green veggies. For the green vegetable, I tend to use zucchini, but you can also use celery, and if you don't have either of those, even green beans or broccoli work. For the chicken, I use either wings, chicken frames, or chicken necks. I wouldn't use breast because the bones help in adding flavor, but the rest is up to you.

So the following is one way to make the soup, and the way I made it to take this photograph and to measure exact quantities to write this down, but switch it up with different ingredients and have fun.

The Perfect Chicken Soup Recipe -- Gluten Free, Allergy Friendly, Paleo, and Delicious

Ingredients
4-5 chicken wings, approximately 1 1/2-2 cups in volume, or similar amount of necks or frames

2 onions 

6-7 carrots, approximately 4 cups chopped, or a mix of different orange vegetables.

1 large zucchini or 2 cups 

10 cups water

1 tablespoon salt (this is not a typo)

Instructions

1. Put the chicken in a large pot (5 quarts should be enough). It can still be frozen, but then cooking time will be longer.

2. Put in your onions; I prefer them whole, but you can quarter them or chop them smaller. No, you aren't frying it up first.

3. Chop your carrots and zucchini to the size you like. I suggest cutting the zucchini in rounds so it holds together better and doesn't fall apart into the soup when cooking. 

4. Add 10 cups of water.

5. Add the salt. This is not a typo. Yes, it needs 1 tablespoon salt. If you don't beleive me, add 2 teaspoons, but at the end you'll taste it and might feel something is missing, and then you'll add the last teaspoon of salt but will need to cook it for longer so the salt gets absorbed into the vegetables.

6. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low for at least an hour and a half, ideally two or more.  You aren't just cooking it until the vegetables are soft; it has to cook long enough for the vegetable flavor to permeate the broth and after an hour it barely does that, after an hour and a half it is ok, but you won't get the full richness of flavor until 2 hours. 

If you use a pressure cooker you can cut this time down tremendously and only cook it for half an hour.

Enjoy!

Did you grow up with chicken soup? Are you a fan? If you make it, what is your recipe like? Would you try this recipe?