Chicken Soup with Lemon & Herbs

Soup is one of the many reasons I love fall and winter! It's one of my favorite foods foods and it's also extremely nourishing.

Using homemade chicken stock is the key to this soup. It’s full of vitamins, minerals and amino acids in easy to digest forms. It also makes it delicious. This recipe makes a large batch that fed our family of four two dinners. Make a batch and freeze some to have if you feel like you're coming down with a cold or flu this winter. You'll be so happy you did!

Chicken Soup with Lemon & Herbs

Ingredients:

2 small or medium onions, chopped 1 bulb/head garlic, minced 1 whole chicken 4 medium carrots, chopped 6 ribs celery, chopped zest from 1 lemon juice from 1 lemon 1 Tbs. butter 1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil 1 tsp. each dried basil, parsley, marjoram, summer savory, rosemary, thyme and oregano (feel free to omit or add herbs based on personal preference) 2 tsp sea salt pepper to taste

Instructions:

First make the chicken stock. Put the chicken in a large soup pot and cover with water with 1 tsp sea salt. I used a 6 quart pot and filled it until it was 2/3 full. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours or longer (until the chicken is cooked).

Remove the chicken from the stock. Let cool and and remove the chicken from the bones and cut into bite size pieces. You can save the bones to make nourishing bone broth later. Put the meat back into the soup pot with the stock. Next, heat the butter and oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until transparent. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes.

Add the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, herbs, pepper, 1 tsp salt, 1 Tbs of lemon juice and 1/2 of the lemon zest to the pot of broth and chicken meat. Turn up the heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir in the rest of the lemon zest and add lemon juice to your taste. Add more sea salt if desired. Serve hot and enjoy!

If you enjoy this recipe, there's more in my e-cookbook, 31 Whole Food Dinner Recipes (that happen to be gluten free, grain free and are almost nightshade free). You can get the e-book here.