A ‘Healing’ and Comforting Chicken Soup

Illness hit our house before the Thanksgiving holiday this year. After a few days of moaning and groaning, our eldest spiked a fever and tested positive for Influenza A.

Let me just take a minute here to brag on this 13 year old man child – the second his throat started bothering him, he started to wear a mask around us. He didn’t want his daddy – or anyone else – to catch what he had. And once we knew what he had, he kept to himself (he mostly slept) and everyone else avoided getting sick. Now THAT is something to be thankful for.

Back to the gunk – eldest was down for the count and while the man child hates soup on a normal day, he asked for soup. I was happy to oblige and prepared a large pot of our ‘healing’ and comforting soup for him, and the rest of us. This is a brothy chicken soup we all believe has healing powers. We serve this soup with standard carbohydrate fare on the side as an add on option (because neither child will eat limp noodles or soggy rice – they’re bougie like that…and an apple doesn’t fall from a pear tree).

As a prequel note – I peel and cut all of my veggies in advance of the cooking stage so that I can use ALL of the veggie scraps to make the broth. It sounds gross, but I promise it isn’t. It’s just another way for us to maximize the vitamin and mineral content of even the broth – which is arguably the most important part of the soup, especially if you’re nauseous and can only tolerate fluids.

Ingredients

– 4 large chicken breast, bone and skin on if you want a rich broth  

– 1 lemon, halved and seeded  

– 5 carrots peeled and cut in half moons 

– 5 celery stalks, diced 

– 2 onions, diced 

– 5 cloves of garlic, pressed 

– 1 inch knob of ginger, grated 

– 2 cans of cannellini beans, drained 

– 3 yellow squash, diced 

– any other veggie 

– salt to taste 

– olive oil 

– 1/2 tsp. nutmeg 

– 1 tsp. turmeric 

-1 lb bag of pasta (short pasta like elbows, or small shells), cooked – salted and buttered or any other starch of your choice 

Instructions

– In a full pot of water, add one whole lemon cut in half, a generous amount of salt, and any veggie kitchen scraps you have, and the 4 chicken breasts
– Boil until the chicken is cooked. Remove from the water and dice the chicken (i don’t shred it). If you kept the skin and bones on – discard these.
– Pass the liquid through a strainer lined with cheese cloth or paper towel (yes yes, don’t judge me for the paper towels – you do you boo). Reserve the water. Make sure to squeeze the cooked lemon to get the juice out of it and into the broth.
– In the pot, add olive oil and saute the onions, garlic, ginger, nutmeg, turmeric, and celery.
– Add the reserved broth and chicken back to the pot.
– Let these veggies and the chicken boil for a while to meld the flavors together. Taste the broth and adjust the seasoning. An hour before you eat add the rest of the veggies. My kids don’t like mushy veggies so I try not to overcook them. Serve with the carbohydrate of your choice.

While I can’t promise that this soup will cure what ails you, I can promise that you’ll feel a whole lot better after eating a bowl. This soup also freezes well and tends to taste better on day two or three when all of the flavors have melded and the beans have released their starch into the broth.

I hope that none of you experience illness over the holidays, but thought I would share in case someone needed a recipe from a friend.