Everything! A hot steaming bowl of chicken soup served for lunch or dinner is especially nice on icy damp January days like we’ve been having around here. Also great for sore throats, a perfect simple protein/veggie meal for little tummies, and the ultimate comfort food. This paleo friendly recipe is extremely easy to throw together, although there is some ‘de-boning’ work involved in the prep, but makes a large batch (for freezing/reheating, yay!).

Ingredients

• One whole fresh chicken (usually found bagged in the refrigerated mean section of store)
• 2 + 3 carrots, divided
• 2+ 3 celery stalks, divided
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 onion, quartered
• Fresh ginger (optional)
• Bay leaves
• Salt/pepper to taste

Directions

• Rinse chicken and put the entire bird in a pot
• Fill with water, so it just covers chicken
• Add a couple of roughly chopped carrots and celery stalks, garlic cloves, onion also roughly chopped, ginger and bay leaves
• Bring to boil and let simmer for an hour or so
• Remove chicken from pot (but save broth!) and let cool
• Save all the broth, but discard veggies, bay leaves, ginger and anything else you don’t want in broth
• Note that carrots/celery/onions/garlic get mushy after an hour cooking, so you will add new ones later. Mom tip: Carrots tend to be perfect for mashing into baby food though! 🙂
• Once chicken is cooled, pick all the meat off the bones
• Put broth back on heat and throw in sliced carrots and chopped celery
• Bring to a simmer, add the now de-boned chicken back to soup
• Season with salt & pepper and serve hot!