Taking Stock of Chicken Soup

While growing up, mom’s chicken soup was always the centerpiece of our special holiday meals. Nothing reminds me of the comforts of home than a bowl of chicken soup that I have learned to make that is—almost—as good as mom’s.

This humble broth embodies the best of all things. It is delicious and nutritious, inexpensive to make, and easy to prepare for a group of any size.

Chicken soup is also well known for its therapeutic effects, earning the designation of “Jewish penicillin” or bubbemycin. A bowl of chicken soup provides needed liquids and salts, along with easily digestible fats and proteins.

The curative power of chicken soup isn’t just folklore. Chicken soup has been clinically shown to improve the symptoms of a cold by clearing nasal passages and increasing nasal mucus velocity, which I only mention because I enjoy saying “nasal mucus velocity.”

Making a pot of chicken soup is so ridiculously easy, there is rarely a need to ever buy canned chicken soup or chicken stock for cooking. If you recently made and kept the split breast bones and celery leftovers, you’re already halfway to a pot of fresh soup.

Any piece of uncooked chicken can be used to make soup. You want pieces that don’t have too much fat, and with a lot of bone that provides flavor. I’ve found that the best proportion of bone to fat and meat are chicken necks and backs, which can sometimes be found packaged inexpensively at the supermarket.

Thighs tend to produce soup with a darker flavor and more fat (which can be easily removed by chilling the soup overnight in the refrigerator and skimming off the solidified fat, resulting in almost fat-free broth).

Usually, what we do is buy split breasts and cut the meat away from the rib bones, cook the meat for one meal (such as ) and save the skinless and almost meatless bones in a Ziplock bag in the freezer until I have enough to make soup.

Another way to do it is use a small whole chicken, and then pull off the cooked meat to make a meaty chicken soup.

Take 1.5 to 2 pounds of chicken pieces and bones—still frozen directly from the freezer is fine—and cover with water in a large pot. Add:

• 1 onion
• 4-6 celery stalks
• 4-6 carrots or about a half pound of baby carrots
• Salt to taste (always needs more salt)

The onion can be kept whole or sliced into half, so it is easy to retrieve after the soup is cooked. Similarly, the celery and carrot are kept whole or cut into large pieces. The vegetables are for flavor and don’t end up in the bowl.

You can experiment adding small amounts of herbs such as bay leaf or rosemary. A little bit of herb goes a long way in soup, so go easy.

Turn up the heat beneath the pot, but do not let boil. Boiling the chicken bones makes the soup foamy. Simmer for two or more hours; the longer it cooks the more reduced and intense the flavors.

Before serving, I usually pour the soup through a strainer or cheesecloth into another pot to produce a clear bowl of flavorful golden yellow soup. Add rice or a noodle of your choosing, and serve.