Healing Slow Cooker Chicken Soup
At work, the push carts loaded with chocolate bars and anchoring shiny balloons only mean one thing; It’s flu season. The hospital I work at provides flu shots to all their staff and even bribes those who are hesitant with sweets. Mind you, I commute on public transit, so I knew flu season was on the way when the passengers around me were all coughing and sniffling. Unfortunately during rush hour the train is the perfect environment to spread all kinds of colds and the flu — there are many times I wish I could just hold my breath the whole ride home!
Recently, I stumbled across a simple recipe for homemade chicken soup in a book I was reading, so when I started to feel under the weather I looked it up. The soup can be made in a stock pot on your stove top, but I made a few changes to the original recipe to make it work in our slow cooker.
Depending on how sensitive your tummy is feeling when you need this homemade remedy, you can remove the chunks of chicken and the vegetables and eat the broth alone. It is a light chicken, carrot and parsnip flavoured broth that reminded me of the egg drop soup my grand mother used to make at Easter.
So far we’ve been lucky and were able to eat the chicken in the broth for a more hearty meal. For this version, transfer the chicken breasts to a plate and remove the meat from the bones while breaking it into bite-sized pieces. Stir the chicken back into the broth and serve.
I ate three bowls of this soup over the course one evening. After sleeping like a baby (no coughing all night!!), I woke up feeling refreshed. We loved this soup so much we ate it all. Now I’m making another batch so that I can freeze some for the next time we need some TLC.
I’m submitting this soup to Souper Sunday Kahakai Kitchen.
Healing Slow Cooker Chicken Soup
Prep:
20 minutes
Cook:
10 hours (low) or 5 hours (high)
Yield: 8 servings
- 12 cups water
- 2 bone-in chicken breasts (it's up to you whether you want skin on or off, I left it on)
- 2 cubes chicken bouillon
- 3 peeled and quartered onions
- 2 peel and halved parsnips
- 6 halved celery stalks
- 6 peeled and halved carrots
- 4 tbsp fresh parsley
- 4 tbsp fresh dill
- 1 tsp salt
- 1⁄2 tsp pepper
Put the chicken, bouillon cubes, vegetables, vegetables, salt and pepper into your slow cooker insert.
Add the water and cover.
Cook on low for 10 hours (or high for 5 hours).
Strain the broth into a large bowl. Discard the vegetables and herbs. Cool the chicken and cut for use in another dish. (Or remove from the bone and break into bite-sized pieces and stir into the broth before serving.)
Ladel the soup into bowls and garnish with freshly chopped parsley.
**Recipe adapted from Pregnancy for Dummies
