Nourishing Chicken Soup with Stephanie Gobbo

For those of you who aren't familiar with Steph, she's a Resident Clinical Naturopath & Nutritionist BHSc at Willow Urban Retreat. This nourishing soup is the perfect recipe to prepare on a raining weekend afternoon as we head into the cooler months. This chicken soup creates a gut healing bone broth and is filled with immune boosting ingredients and anti-inflammatory nutrients. We are using the whole chicken to create the broth so this recipe is split into 3 parts. 

Serves: 6-8 

Cook: 2 hours 

Roast chicken Ingredients:

• 1 whole organic Hagen’s chicken- rinse well with cold water inside and out and pat dry with paper towel
• 1/4 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil + some to drizzle 
• 8 cloves of garlic- smashed 
• 1 large brown onion cut into 8 pieces 
• 2 medium carrots cut into small discs 
• 1 large celery stalk cut into pieces
• 1 teaspoon of dried oregano
• Salt + pepper 

Chicken Bone Broth Ingredients:

• 8 cups of Hagen’s chicken stock
• 2 fresh rosemary sprigs
• 8 fresh thyme sprigs
• 3 dried bay leaves
• + The roasted chicken and roasted vegetables from above 

Soup Ingredients:

• 4 large celery stalks- finely chopped 
• 3 small carrots- finely diced 
• 150g of mixed mushrooms- chopped 
• 1.5 cups of baby kale- finely chopped 
• 1 leek- finely chopped 
• 1/2 cup of GF quinoa pasta
• 1 whole lemon zested 
• Extra virgin olive oil 
• Salt and pepper to season
• Freshly chopped parsley and parmesan cheese to serve 

Step One - Roasting

1. Preheat oven to 180. We are roasting our chook and vegetables first for a delicious rich soup base.
2. Place chicken in a large ceramic pot that you can transfer from the oven to the stove. 
3. Drizzle the chook with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with oregano and season well with salt and pepper.
4. Around the chicken, place the chopped onion, carrots, celery and garlic. Drizzle the whole pot with some more EVOO or you could use ghee or butter. 
5. Roast uncovered for 1 hour.

Step Two - Creating the bone broth 

1. Take pot out of the oven and put straight onto the stove. Turn the chicken over and then cover with 8 cups of chicken stock. Add thyme, rosemary and bay leaves. 
2. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes. 
3. While the pot is simmering, chop all your fresh vegetables for the soup.

Step Three - Putting the soup together

1. Once the 30-minute simmer is done, remove chicken from the bone broth base and set aside breast side down on a chopping board to cool slightly before removing all the meat. 
2. Strain your bone broth into a large bowl and put aside cooked vegetables. 
3. *We won’t be using these again for this recipe but save them and the chicken carcass for making another chicken broth! (You can freeze them for a later date or make one straight away)
4. In the empty pot, add EVOO and lightly cook leeks for a few minutes. Add in finely chopped raw celery and carrot for a further 10 minutes until soft. 
5. Add the bone broth back in then add in chopped mushrooms and chopped kale. Simmer for 10 minutes.
6. While simmering, remove and shred chicken meat from bones. (Keep carcass to one side). The chicken will shred about 4 cups of meat. Feel free to add this all into the soup or save 1 cup for mid week lunches. 
7. Add in pasta and shredded chicken for a further 8 minutes until pasta is cooked through.
8. Add a squeeze of lemon juice, season with salt and pepper and then it is ready to serve.
9. Serving suggestions: freshly chopped parsley & parmesan cheese.
10. Store leftovers in a glass jar in the fridge or freezer! This soup will solidify when cold as we have made a bone broth. Bone broth is extremely therapeutic. As soon as you warm it again it will melt back into a soup.