Chicken Soup to Conquer the World (or at least a cold)

It happens to the best of us. One day, you’re proudly living up to resolutions you set early in the year—you know the ones—to exercise regularly, drink less coffee, cook more, and stay on top of work. Then you wake up with the faintest scratchy throat. It proceeds into a full-blown, real-world cold, the kind that takes everything appealing about eating and makes it less so. The result: an appetite, along with many good intentions, sidelined.

After emerging from January and February cold-free, I wore a bit of bravado about my robust immune system. That changed when I woke up without a voice, a harbinger of a week of coughing fits. The only time I ate was when I knew I had to eat something, and the only real food I felt like was chicken soup.

It’s cliché, really, even talking about chicken soup for a cold. But I’m picky about the soup. Maybe it’s because I’ve gone so wrong in the past. I’ve made it oddly sweet (by cooking the onions too long before adding the stock) and I’ve overcooked the heck out of the vegetables (by dicing them too small). I’ve had too many carrots and not enough celery and I’ve been overly fancy with spices. I’ve also been disappointed with store-bought renditions, which always beg for adjustment. But I’ve worked out a version that works for me every time.

For me, the soup needs to taste clean. The vegetables should be lightly cooked but not browned. There needs to be a decent amount of celery, which is one of the best vegetables matches with chicken. It also needs a little starch. I like rice. Sometimes, I add green onions, garlic, jalapeno and lime zest. But not always.

Just as important is the method: the soup should be dead-simple to make. I buy one skin-on, split chicken breast (the two breasts still attached to the ribs) because it offers a high yield of shredded chicken. I also think the chicken skin adds richness to the broth, which is important if I’m using store-bought broth. (Heck no am I making it from scratch when feeling lousy.) I usually have the rest of the ingredients—onion, celery, carrot, rice, salt—on hand. I make the soup when feeling a tad crummy and then reheat it the rest of the week when I feel worse. When I have a cold, I’m a cheap date.

Once my appetite has rebounded and everything rich and meaty tastes delicious again, I’m usually done with soup for a while. But my aunt woke up this morning without a voice, a harbinger of a week of coughing fits. So I put another pot on the stove.

chicken soup to conquer (or ease) the common cold

Makes about 2 quarts
1 bone-in split chicken breast
4 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 stalks celery, diced into ½-inch chunks
1 carrot, diced into ½-inch chunks
½ yellow onion or 1 small yellow onion, diced into ½-inch chunks
3 green onions, sliced (optional)
1 garlic clove, sliced (optional)
Kosher salt
¼ cup rice (jasmine or basmati are good options)
¼ cup chopped parsley or cilantro
Lemon wedges for serving

1. Put the chicken in a medium pot and pour in the broth. Bring the pot to a boil over medium-high heat, then lower to a gentle simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let the chicken steep for 30 minutes or until the breast meat is cooked through.

2. Strain the broth through a mesh strainer into a bowl, then rinse the pot to use to cook the soup. When the chicken breasts are cool enough to handle, peel away and discard the skin and bones, then shred the meat into spoon-sized pieces.

3. Heat the oil in the medium pot over medium-high heat. Stir in the celery, carrot, onions, and garlic (if using), season with a generous pinch of salt, and sweat until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Stir in the rice and toast briefly, 1-2 minutes. Pour in the broth and add the chicken and parsley. Bring the broth back to a boil, then lower to a gentle simmer and cook until the rice is cooked through, about 10 minutes. Serve with a few lemon wedges alongside.

Tagged as: home cooking, recipes