Ina Garten's Chicken Soup Recipe | The Nosher (2024)

FAQs

How to make homemade soup more flavorful? ›

Use fresh vegetables, high-quality meats or broth, and fresh herbs to add depth of flavor. Add acidity: A squeeze of lemon or lime juice, a dash of vinegar, or a splash of wine can brighten the flavors of a soup and make it taste more complex.

Lots of herbs like rosemary, thyme, and sage or poultry seasoning. If you start your soup with frying the veggies, add your seasonings now. If you are stewing a chicken and you added the veggies later or not, be sure to take 20 minutes before tasting so that the herbs, fresh or dried, will have a chance to infuse.

Cold-poaching the chicken breasts, then removing them until the end of the cooking process, guarantees a perfectly tender and juicy texture. Using stock reinforces the flavor of the broth, creating a more deeply flavorful soup.

As it does with turkey, the body uses tryptophan from chicken to make melatonin—which can help you rest—and serotonin, the chemical that signals your nerves and makes you feel happy and at ease. Both of these are reasons chicken soup is associated with comfort food: you literally feel a physiological sense of comfort.

For clear, brothy soups, stock is your most important ingredient. If you want to make a good soup, you need to use an excellently flavored stock — otherwise, the entire pot could be tasteless.

While broth and stock both get richer and richer the longer you cook them, the problem is that the chicken meat will dry out and get tough if you let it go too long.

Brown or Sear the Meat

If you are adding meat to a soup, sear or brown it in a sauté pan before you add it to the soup. This adds a deeper savory flavor to the whole soup. This trick is especially useful for things like chicken and sausage, which can sometimes get bland and rubbery while floating in a brothy soup.

Leaving the lid off will make liquid evaporate faster, potentially creating a thicker and more flavorful soup. Leaving the lid on reduces the rate of evaporation, and it's good when the soup ingredients are done cooking but the broth isn't quite rich (co-mingled) enough for your liking.

Is it OK to put raw chicken in soup? ›

You can cook the chicken at a high-enough temperature to kill bacteria by turning up the heat on the broth, but for a much safer and tastier method, brown your chicken first. Browning or searing the chicken in a separate pan is not only far more foolproof, but adds richness and extra umami to your soup.

Consider finely chopped parsnips, celery or parsnip root, or bell peppers when looking for an aromatic alternative to carrots to serve as a flavorful sauce, soup, or stock base. All of them will provide some earthy and sweet flavors similar to carrots.

A researcher from the University of Nebraska Medical Center found that classic chicken soup contains numerous benefits related to the vegetables and chicken inside and that together it carries "medicinal activity." The researcher concluded that the link to helping heal upper respiratory illnesses (like colds) most ...

Compared with hot water alone, studies show chicken soup is more effective at loosening mucus. The herbs and spices sometimes used in chicken soup, such as pepper and garlic, also loosen mucus. The broth, which contains water and electrolytes, helps with rehydration.

There is no conclusive scientific evidence to suggest that chicken soup has any special weight loss benefits compared to other soups. However, chicken soup can be a healthy and satisfying low-calorie meal option that can help support weight loss goals when combined with a balanced diet and regular exercise.

Use fresh, good quality ingredients like vegetables and herbs. Add a little bit of vinegar or lemon juice to your soup to make it taste better. Use a high-quality broth or stock as a base for your soup. Roast or caramelize your vegetables before adding them to your soup to bring out their natural sweetness.

Use Herbs and Spices

You may also add more spices like turmeric, ground ginger, ground paprika, or nutmeg for a touch of spice and color to your soup broth. Remember that you must add dried herbs and spices early on, while fresh herbs must be added at the end of cooking.

You can extract a clean, strong broth from a combination of water and several pantry ingredients. It's all about layering powerful flavor-enhancers that you probably already have on hand—bacon, tomato paste, herbs, peppercorns, a Parmesan rind, and, of course, kosher salt.

Oregano: If you want to give your soups a fresh, fragrant, Mediterranean kick, then oregano is the one for you. Oregano works especially well with tomato-based soups, creating a light and fragrant undertone. Cayenne Pepper: Perfect for a little heat, cayenne pepper introduces a warm, spicy depth to your soup.