Alan’s Amazing “Slow Carb” Chicken “Noodle” Soup

I love to make soup. I think soups are a good representation of a cook’s ability to balance flavors and textures. They can also such a delicious way to make a healthy meal that is typically super cheap, relatively simply and provides great leftovers for any meal time (breakfast soup is an awesome replacement for a Bean Smoothie!)

One of my go-to soup recipes is a noodle-free, chicken noodle soup with beans instead of noodles. This soup is amazing, easy and delicious.

This soup is simple to make with basic ingredients, and yet it turns out amazingly complex, flavorful, and filling. It is a perfect soup for summer, winter, when you are sick, on its own as a full meal, or if want to make a special dinner (just pair with some nice cheese and bread and a sharp white wine like a dry riesling!)

You can sub out the chicken to make this a vegan, by replacing the chicken with some tofu chunks. Just follow the recipe, but skip the pre-cooking and shredding steps (steps 2/3 and 13) and just leave the tofu in there from step 9+.

Also, if you are not opposed to noodle carbs and want a less health and not better tasting soup, then you can replace the beans with your favorite noodle shape.

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Prep: 10 minutes

Cook time: 50 minutes

Total time: 60 minutes to soup glory!

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Ingredients:

2-ish pounds of chicken

• boneless skinless thighs are preferred but breast meat is also fine

1 large onion (chopped)

• any kind is fine, I prefer cooking with sweet onions as they are easier to deal with…less tears when cutting!

5-6 full carrots (chopped into about 1/2 inch pieces)

4-5 celery stocks (chopped into about 1/2 inch pieces)

4 garlic cloves

• (diced up or pressed – chopped size does not really matter since it is going a soup) or about a 3 finger pinch of garlic powder.

8 ounces (1/2 pound) of whole mushrooms (cut in halves) these puppies soak up the delicious soup flavor!

1 TABLESPOON (about 3 teaspoons) of lemon juice – about a half a lemon’s worth of juice

9-10 cups of chicken or vegetable broth (just over 2 liters)

• I love Better Than Bouillon stock bases, which you can find on amazon or at Costco

2 bay leaves

1/4 TEASPOON of dried thyme or oregano

2 cans of cooked beans (3-4 cups) – well rinsed!

• A mix of white/red kidney beans or great northern beans or navy beans are preferred

Olive oil or other preferred cooking oil

Salt & Black Pepper (or a nice salt based spice mix, like Salt Lick dry rub which is my favorite)

Big soup pot or dutch oven – (minimum of 6 Quart or 5.7 liters for this recipe but a bit bigger is a bit better)

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Recipe:

1. Wash and cut up the onion, carrots and celery and put them all together in a large mixing bowl. (You will use this bowl later to shred the chicken so don’t worry about washing it yet.)

2. Get the big soup pot and coat bottom with a layer of OIL. Place onto medium high heat and put your CHICKEN pieces in there. Add your salt/pepper or spice mix to lightly coat just the top of the chicken pieces and give it a good stir.

3. Cook the chicken for about 5 minutes and then flip/stir for another 5 min, so 10 minutes total. While it is cooking you can prepare your garlic and wash your mushrooms. (you can rinse them with water, it won’t hurt them as long as you wipe off the after).

4. Remove CHICKEN pieces from pot and put on a plate to hang out for a bit. Leave in any small bits, juices and oils. (They will not be fully cooked yet and that is ok, they will go back into the soup later.

5. Now add any more OIL if needed to make sure the bottom of pot is well coated and ADD your ONION, CARROT and CELERY mix.

6. Give it a good stir and cook for about 8-10 minutes stirring every 2-3 minutes.

7. Prepare you broth, spices and mushrooms while the veggies cook.

8. When Veggies are done (some of them should be a bit browned/caramelized), add in the GARLIC and give a good stir.

9. Now add in the BROTH (9-10 cups), MUSHROOMS, BAY LEAVES (2), DRIED SPICES (1/4 teaspoon), and the CHICKEN with its juices back into the pot.

10. Reduce to a low simmer (medium-low to low heat, soup should be bubbling but not boiling like crazy) and cook covered for about 20 minutes. Rinse your BEANS and prepare your LEMON JUICE while the soup cooks.

11. After 20 minutes, Remove the CHICKEN and put it that in the big veggie bowl from before.

12. Turn OFF the heat and add in your 2 cans of RINSED BEANS, stir the soup well and cover. (you can add your noodle here if you want to go down that path, they will cook in the hot soup even with the heat off)

13. Shred the chicken in the large bowl – an easy way is to use two large forks to pull the chicken apart.

14. Add the shredded CHICKEN back to the pot, and add in the LEMON JUICE (1 tablespoon)

15. Give this a good stirring and then let it sit to cool and meld the flavors for about 10 minutes and then serve it up!

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