Welcome to the second post of my two-part guide for how to cook and use a whole chicken, from start to finish (if you missed the first post, check it out here)! For this soup, we’ll be using the remaining chicken carcass and any leftover chicken meat. Plus some potatoes, barley, turmeric and the veggies that we used to roast the whole chicken. See what I did there? One trip to the grocery store, a week’s worth of food!
If you’ve stumbled across this recipe and didn’t already cook a whole chicken, that’s fine too! You can easily make this soup from scratch using your preferred chicken meat and some bone broth or chicken stock.
I love this soup for so many reasons. First, because consuming the recommended three cup serving of vegetables per day is HARD in the winter. It’s cold out so the last thing you’re craving is a big salad, and so many of our favorite summer vegetables are out of season or taste like cardboard because they’ve been shipped all the way from warmer climates. Since I strive to eat as seasonally and sustainably as possible, vegetable-filled soups like this one become my best friend in the winter.
Second, not only is this soup loaded with seasonal vegetables like tricolor potatoes, carrots, celery and onion, but it’s packed with immunity-boosting bone broth and turmeric. Since this year’s flu shot is only 10% effective, we need all the help we can get this winter! Plus, the barley provides a satisfyingly hearty crunch and one of your daily servings of whole grains (helloooo fiber). All. In. One. Bowl!
Last but not least, if one of your new years goals was to save money in 2018, this soup is the way to go. I bought all my ingredients at Whole Foods for less than $30 – and that included the whole chicken with six servings of meat from my first recipe! That breaks down to about $2.50 per serving – way less than your matcha latte. What more could you ask for from a soup?
- Chicken bones and leftover meat
- 1 tablespoon olive or avocado oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 3 celery stalks, diced
- 2 cups fingerling potatoes, cut in half or quartered
- 1 cup barley
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- In a large stock pot, boil enough water to cover the chicken carcass once submerged. Add 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to the water.
- Once water is boiling, add the chicken carcass and boil for 30 minutes, occasionally skimming fat off the top of the water (skip the skimming if you want your soup to be more fatty and satiating)
- While the chicken carcass boils, heat oil in a large dutch oven or pot on medium; add diced onion, celery, carrots, and turmeric and cook until soft, about 10 minutes minutes
- Add potatoes and cook another 10 minutes
- Season with salt and pepper
- Add 6 cups of water from the chicken broth to the vegetables and turn the heat to high
- Add barley and let simmer for 20 minutes, adding more water from chicken broth, as necessary
- While the soup cooks, remove chicken carcass from broth and carefully peel any remaining meat from the bones using a fork and knife or your fingers (be careful, it's hot!)
- Add all remaining chicken meat to the soup and let simmer for another 15 minutes, adding more broth until it reaches your preferred consistency
- Serve warm with a sprinkle of pepper and parmesan cheese (optional)