Chicken vegetable soup is a classic that I’m sure everyone is familiar with. I really wanted to take everything I love about this soup and create a super flavorful and healthy winter recipe. The winter vegetables add that earthy sweetness, the mushrooms add depth, umami, and texture, and the greens bring freshness and vibrance.
Chicken Vegetable Soup: is this necessary?
This soup is not for the faint of heart. It’s not that it involves too many finicky techniques or hard to find ingredients, but it may involve some steps that seem needlessly over the top. Having cooked dishes like this countless times, these are steps that I’ve found that take a dish to the next level.
Worth the Effort
I try to only include steps that are truly needed and have a noticeable impact, and find workarounds for others. As you may notice, there is the makings of a bouquet garni in the ingredients. However, instead of tying them together and going through all that here, they’re just included within the broth because it’s destined to be strained anyway.≈
The straining allows the broth to be free of debris after it has already soaked up all of the flavor from the aromatics up to that point. From there, it’s all about getting each element to its ideal place. This is why the mushrooms are cooked separately. It allows them to obtain the flavor of being sauté without sitting in simmering broth, potentially losing that flavor and their texture.
Build your Chicken Vegetable Soup
In general, this soup should follow a fairly predictable process for building flavor. First, chicken thighs are browned to add the foundation for the flavor base. Then, the mirepoix is sautéd, which is followed by the aromatic pastes and spices. All of that wonderful flavor that is now stuck to the bottom of the pan is then released through deglazing by the white wine.
Creating a Flavorful Broth
Now that the soup’s base has been created, it’s time to add chicken stock, our deconstructed bouquet garni, and the reserved chicken thighs. This not only cooks the chicken, but creates an intensely flavorful broth for our soup. This is also one of those times where a homemade stock will go a long way in boosting the flavor. Now is the time to sauté the mushrooms to be added at the end.
Finishing the Soup
After the chicken has cooked, the broth is strained, and the sweet potatoes and carrots are cooked until tender. You can also use other root vegetables, tubers, etc. Just be aware that the cooking times may be different then. Right at the end, the greens are then wilted, the reserved mushrooms and chicken are added, and then it’s time to adjust the seasoning as needed.
Chicken Vegetable Soup
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless chicken thighs
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 2 medium carrots, diced
- 2 celery ribs, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, grated
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon coriander
- ½ teaspoon fennel seed
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- ½ cup dry white wine, divided
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 2 thyme sprigs
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 parsley stems
- 1 arbol chile
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 pound shiitake mushrooms, sliced
- 1 pound sweet potatoes, cut in ½ inch chunks
- 1 pound carrots, cut in ½ inch chunks
- 1 bunch lacinato kale or Swiss chard, trimmed and roughly chopped
Directions
- Step 1 Season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Working in batches, sear meat until deeply browned on both sides. Transfer to a plate.
- Step 2 Adjust heat to medium and add the onion, diced carrot, and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add garlic, cumin, coriander, fennel, and tomato paste and sauté, stirring, until fragrant, about two minutes.
- Step 3 Pour in half the wine and cook, stirring and scraping until all the solids are integrated into the liquid. Simmer until liquid is almost gone, about 2 minutes. Pour in the stock and add reserved chicken, thyme, bay leaves, parsley stems, and chile to the pot. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer, and cook, uncovered, until the chicken is cooked and starting to fall apart, about 30 minutes.
- Step 4 Meanwhile, melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. Cook mushrooms, until browned, about 5 minutes. Deglaze with the remaining wine and simmer until liquid is almost gone, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and reserve.
- Step 5 Remove the chicken from the pot and shred. Strain the broth through a conical sieve into a clean pot and bring to a simmer. Add sweet potatoes and carrots, and cook until almost tender, about 15 minutes. Add greens and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes.
- Step 6 Add reserved mushrooms and chicken, and adjust seasoning.
