photo by Diane Dobry

Made with 10+ veggies

This is the recipe for Chicken Stock that I use as a base for all my soups–from the Carrot Soup posted in April here, to creamy (cauliflower) garlic soup, cauliflower/tomato soup, chickpea soup, creamy vegetable soup, broccoli soup, and cream of leek soup. I also add it to pasta sauces, gravies, polenta, and casseroles. Or I just eat it on its own, especially when I need some home-style healing. Sometimes I have added fresh cooked root vegetables or roasted chicken pieces with noodles, the way Hungarians do. However you like your chicken stock, I wanted to share my own special recipe, and will add more soups to this space that use the stock as a base.

Hearty Chicken Soup ingredients:

2 Leeks, whites cleaned and sliced (save greens for later)
1 onion diced (save onion skin for later)
3 carrots peeled and sliced
3 celery stalks, cleaned and sliced
1 small celery root, peeled and sliced (optional)
2 parsnips, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 small turnip, peeled and sliced
1 quarter wedge of green cabbage, separated
6-8 cauliflower florets broken into small pieces
1 green serrano pepper, whole
2 bay leaves, broken
1 bunch fresh parsley
1 bunch fresh dill
1-3 stems fresh thyme
1 stem fresh rosemary
few leaves of fresh sage if desired
salt to taste–best to add a small amount to help onions and vegetables sweat, and adjust at the end to taste

I add chicken bones, feet or drumsticks or wings to the pot. I often will just roast the meat and add the cooked chicken and drippings to the pot, sometimes cooking the chicken pieces over the carrots, onions, leeks, celery and parsnips. So those vegetables are roasted in the chicken fat and also added to the pot.

I add filtered water and some chicken-flavored Better Than Bouillion paste.

(You can also process the onions with the leeks in a food processor before sautéeing in oil, and the carrots, celery, parsnips, turnip and cauliflower, as well).