“Mama, will you take my tempootour?”
I am home taking care of a little girl with the flu. I wanted to make her some chicken soup, but didn’t have a lot of time for prep and didn’t want to be handling raw meat while working with a teething baby and a sick 5 year old. I wanted homemade, but also minimal work.
The Ingredients
Two 32 oz. Organic Chicken Broth
One Bunch Carrots
One Bunch Green Onions
One Bunch Rainbow Chard
One Bunch Celery
One Package Sliced Mushrooms
Two Cups Pearled Barley
One Rotisserie Chicken
Some spices, whatever you like, I used a dash of oregano and thyme.
Rinse the barley. If you do not have one of these tools, get one. They are great for rinsing smaller things like rice or for draining mac n cheese. They are also a great sifter for cakes.
Great kitchen tool
Add the barley to a large pot, put in both chicken broth containers with 6 additional cups of water. Turn heat on medium-high.
chop up the chicken
I chose the already made chicken so that I would not be handling raw meat and it is a lot faster to get the soup ready. Chop up the chicken and remove a good portion of the skin. Put the chicken in with the barley with the meat still on the bones.
Let this cook at medium heat uncovered for 30-40 minutes until the barley is getting somewhat soft.
Chop the veggies
The rainbow chard really made this soup great. It is heartier than spinach but it is not bitter. It holds up in the soup like a root vegetable does.
Add the vegetables to the soup
Add the spices and salt to taste. I kept this one pretty low salt and did not add a lot of extra spices this time. The rotisserie chicken is already so strongly flavored. Stir it together and cover. Set the timer for 20 minutes.
DONE!!
You may need to work some of the meat off the bones, but it will be mostly falling off at this point. Remove the bones from the pot now or wait until it cools off more.
You can cut this recipe in half. I have a huge pot and we have lots of leftovers!
Thanks for sharing! I was just thinking of making a homemade chicken soup. I’m teaching myself to cook… And I’m still scared to cook a whole chicken. This looks easy. And yummy!
I know what you mean, I was intimidated by the idea of a whole chicken too. The rotisserie makes it easy though. How have you been teaching yourself? The Food Network on line is a GREAT resource!
I just told Josh on Sat I wanted to make some soup it stinks when your little ones are sick.
Thanks. Sounds really good and am going to try it. I think I will use raw organic boneless/skinless breast tenders though because they broil in minutes, you only have to handle them once raw, and they are a lot easier to handle than a whole chicken.
Let me know how it turns out. You may need to add a little more seasoning.