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After a few weeks of the GAPS Introductory Diet, I had settled on two soups that I loved. I refined my techniques for making them, and they just kept getting better and better. Today I will share with you one these wonderful soup recipes: Creamy Chicken Soup.
This creamy chicken soup is dairy-free, coconut-free, AIP-friendly, and safe for stage one of GAPS intro. It is even cauliflower-free, unless you don’t want it to be. Too good to be true? Believe it! So what’s my secret ingredient?
Healing diets such as GAPS Intro and the Autoimmune Protocol emphasize the importance of adding healthy fats into the diet and eating the whole animal. GAPS Intro particularly focuses on using the soft parts of animals in soups and stews to help heal the body and the gut. However, I can’t stand chicken skin. It tastes and feels just….no. So what’s a girl seeking healing to do?
Puree it.
Yep! That’s the secret ingredient! After cooking the whole chicken, I picked off all the skin, soft bits, and a couple organs (I started with the heart and the liver) and pureed them all in a blender. This yielded an incredibly smooth, neutral flavored “gravy” that adds depth, creaminess, and lots of healing goodness to your chicken soup.
This soup is also incredibly easy to make and customize. Pick your favorite veggies, add herbs and spices you can tolerate (or don’t – it’s delicious with just salt!), and you are half way to a delicious soup.
A prepped bowl of veggies for one of my batches of Creamy Chicken Soup
My favorite way to prepare my vegetables is to puree carrots and onions in a food processor. This adds a nice texture to me. Any others (I usually use broccoli and sometimes peas) I just put in chopped. Try different ways of preparing your vegetables. You would be surprised by how much a different technique can effect the experience of your soup!
Whether you use broth or filtered water in this recipe is up to you. Boiling the whole chicken and adding in the soft bits will yield a very nutritious broth and soup. For extra healing power, add in some some broth and your soup will gel like crazy:
There was no liquid in this batch – just a solid mass of healing soup
Whatever you choose, this is a lovely and delicious healing recipe for a creamy chicken soup.
Delicious creamy chicken soup - safe for all diets!
Ingredients
- 1 whole organic chicken
- Broth/Filtered water
- 12 cups vegetables, chopped (ideas: squash, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, rutabaga, etc.)
- 1 onion
- Herbs and spices (optional)
Instructions
- Rinse out the chicken. Place the whole chicken and its organs into a large stock pot.
- Fill the pot with enough water or broth to cover the chicken.
- Bring to a boil on the stove. Reduce to a simmer and cook covered for one hour.
- When the chicken is fully cooked, remove it and all the organs from the stock pot. I usually use two sets on tongs to accomplish this - you need to reserve all the cooking liquid. Put these on a plate and set aside.
- Add all the vegetables, plus herbs and spices if using, to the cooking liquid.
- Return to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook covered for 30 minutes or until vegetables are soft.
- As the vegetables are cooking and once the chicken has cooled enough to handle, begin to dismantle it. Place all of the skin, soft parts, and desired organs in a blender. Set the bones and cartilage aside to make bone broth. Add the meat to the soup.
- Add a few ladle-fulls of broth to the blender with the soft parts. Blend on medium until smooth.
- Add the "gravy" to the soup pot. Stir everything together.
- Keep in the refrigerator for up to a week. This recipe freezes well. See serving suggestions below for ideas on how to prepare individual bowls of this delicious soup.
Notes
Serving Suggestions: Add one clove of crushed/minced garlic per serving. Return the soup to a boil and serve immediately. At least one tablespoon of animal fat (lard, tallow, ghee or butter if tolerated, etc.) should also be added to each serving. For those who are farther along in GAPS, raw egg yolk is a delicious stage two addition to make this soup even creamier. A bit of mashed avocado (*stage three*) adds variety and more healthy fats - so good! Add salt to taste.
Shared on AIP Roundtable, Allergy-Free Wednesdays, GAPS Intro Recipes, Simple Lives Thursday, and Wildcrafting Wednesdays.
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YAY, great technique! This is what we do too, so yummy, all that fat! 😉
Yay! I had never thought of it before GAPS and now I’m never making chicken soup without it!
What a wonderful healing soup! This sounds absolutely delicious!
Thank you! It is!
This looks so nourishing and comforting! And I love how you can mix it up with the different vegetables! Are there any specific combinations of vegetables that you especially like? I hear it’s hard to make a “bad” soup, but trust me, I have done it… so I always like to ask for specifics 😉 haha
That’s smart! Although I don’t really have a science for how I add vegetables. I usually add 1 pound of broccoli, since that’s how our broccoli comes packaged, and a handful or two of carrots (maybe about 8 carrots). Then I round it off with peas. Most of my variety comes in whether I chop or puree the carrots! And sometimes I swap out the broccoli with cauliflower, in which case I use even more peas.
So when is that potluck again?! Great recipe. YUM! =) I <3 the veggies!!
It certainly would be a perfect potluck soup! Lots of yummy veggies and budget friendly.
Wow! Love this recipe. Pinned and sharing!
Thank you!
I’m curious about the average weight of your chicken. Mine range from 2-6 lbs. for organic/ free range. Depends on where I get them from. I can’t imagine you mean a 6 lb chicken. but I’m still getting the hang of veggie to meat ratios.
My chickens are usually 3-4 pounds. I usually eyeball the amount of vegetables anyway.
Thank you so much for posting this. I made it and it’s so amazing!!! Plus it filled me up so much longer using all the skin and parts 🙂 You are brilliant!
Thank you so much!
Thank you for this recipe! Exactly what I was looking for. Just discovered the GAPS diet and giving it a go. Will definitely be making this soup tomorrow.
I hope you liked it!
So, you put the skin in the blender with the organs? Or do you add it to the bones to make bone broth?
I put it in the blender with the organs. It makes the soup really creamy!
Hi. Is it alright to add spices like whole cardamom, cumin, clove, cinnamon … Into the soup ?
As long as you tolerate them, absolutely!
I am eager to try this! Thanks for sharing. What exactly do you mean by the “soft parts”?
Basically anything that isn’t meat, but soft enough to go through the blender, like the skin.
I have a question. I see bits of chicken in your soup, but you say to put all the soft parts into the blender? Do you mean all the soft parts, minus the chicken meat? Second, could you add yoghurt to make it creamy?
That’s correct. Soft parts refers to the skin, gibblets, etc. I’ve never tried adding yogurt to the soup, as I generally eat dairy free. Feel free to try it and see what you think!