Chicken Vegetable Soup Simmered for the Bowl

Set out chicken thighs bone-in, carrots, and onions before you start Chicken Vegetable Soup Simmered for the Bowl. The batch is written for 5 quarts.

Count on 20 minutes of prep, 45 minutes of cooking, about 1 hour from the first measurement to the plate.

Ingredients Method

What goes in the bowl

• 1 pound chicken thighs bone-in, skin removed
• 5 medium carrots
• 2 medium onions
• 4 celery stalks
• 12 ounces mushrooms I used baby Bella’s
• 4 small oregano stalks leaves removed & roughly chopped
• 6 fresh thyme sprigs
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 small zucchini
• 14 ounces crushed tomatoes canned
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 15 ounces canned great northern beans not drained
• 15 ounces canned small white beans not drained
• 15 ounces canned kidney beans drained
• ¼ cup tomato paste
• kosher salt to taste
• pepper to taste

How the cooking goes

1. Finely dice the carrots (you did not peel mine because they were super skinny!), onions, and celery. Place in a mixing bowl and keep it to one side.
2. In a large Dutch oven or stock pot, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over a moderate flame until hot but not smoking. Season both sides of the chicken thighs with kosher salt and then brown in the stock pot. You will need to work in 2 batches.
3. Once brown, remove from the pot to a rimmed plate or dish. Repeat the searing with remaining chicken thighs. You did not need to add oil because there was a little untrimmed fat that rendered it into the pot.
4. Remove all chicken from the pot. Add a little more oil, approximately 1 tablespoon more, then pour in all the chopped carrots, onions, and celery. Continue cooking over medium or medium-low to sweat out the moisture.
5. While the mire-poix (carrot mixture) is cooking, finish chopping the zucchini and mushrooms.
6. Once the onions are translucent in the carrot mixture, add the zucchini, mushrooms, thyme sprigs, chopped oregano, canned crushed tomatoes, great northern beans and their juices, small white beans and their juices, drained kidney beans and tomato paste.
7. Put the browned chicken thighs and their accumulated juices along with the vegetable stock to the pot, stir.
8. Cook, covered, over medium-low heat. You taste for seasoning once everything has come to a simmer. Add salt and pepper as desired.
9. You skim the foam off the top of the soup after about 30 minutes. Using a small ladle or large metal spoon is best. A large ladle will not skim the foam as efficiently and you will lose more good soup.
10. Continue cooking until the zucchini and chicken thighs are cooked through. Using tongs, a fork or kitchen tweezers, remove the chicken thighs to a cutting board. You also remove the spent thyme sprigs while This kitchen is in there digging around.
11. Shred your chicken off the bone using two forks then then cut any large chunks into bite-size pieces. Throw away the bones and then scrape the pulled chicken back into the soup. Taste for seasoning one last time. Add salt or pepper as desired.
12. The soup cooked for about 45 minutes total. Serve hot. You served mine with Irish brown bread, which is like whole wheat Irish soda bread!

After it comes off the heat

Cool the pot before it goes into the refrigerator. It reheats gently on the stove the next day.

If you want another plate from Chicken, open Chicken in White Wine Sauce Cooked Through and Ground Chicken Burgers Cooked Through.