Chicken and Zucchini Soup

RonaNZ's Note:

I looked in the fridge tonight and all I could find was a small bit of roast chicken and some veggies. I decided to give this method of making chicken stock a go – shared with me by the Home Ec. teacher I work with. It makes a wonderful stock and this was the resulting soup.

• Total Time: 28 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 13 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 3

• 1 chicken carcass
• 4 cups water
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 medium onion
• 1 stalk celery
• 2 small carrots
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 cups pasta shells
• 2 zucchini
• 1 cooked chicken breast
• salt
• pepper

Directions:

1. Take the chicken breast off the roast chicken and put the chicken bones, wings and any other bits in a large microwave dish with the water and thyme. Cover and cook on high for 10 minutes.
2. While that is cooking, start on the prep of the veg.
3. Finely chop the onion and fry in the oil. Add a little salt to help season the veg as they are cooking.
4. Cut the celery into strips lengthways and then chop into small cubes. Add to the onion.
5. Peel and cube the carrot to about the same size as the celery. Add to the pot.
6. Add crushed garlic.
7. By this time the stock should be finished - unless you are particularly fast at veg prep!
8. Strain the stock over the vegetables.
9. Add the pasta shells or whatever pasta you happen to have.
10. Slice the chicken breast and pick off any good bits of chicken from the drained bones. Add to the pot.
11. Simmer for as long as it takes to cook the pasta – 13 minutes for my pasta shells.
12. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
13. Add more water if necessary. I needed to add a little more water after about 10 minutes.
14. Add the zucchini/courgette in the last 5 minutes of cooking. Slice the zucchini lengthways. Cut into triangular pieces. I find cutting the zucchini this way helps keep them in one piece in a soup where they may get overcooked when the soup is reheated.
15. Enjoy!

Reviews

[Charlotte J]

I won the jackpot on this recipe! Not only was it very good and healthy, I was able to use leftover turkey. This will also be a great way to use up my abundant supply of zucchini in the summer!!! The onion, celery and carrots were chopped in the mini food processor so that only took a few minutes to prepare. I did add about 5-6 sprigs total of the thyme. I found a little more water was needed as this cooked. Thank you for a delicious lunch and a way to use more yellow squash and zucchini! Made for Healthy Choices ABC Tag Game 2011

[ElaineAnn]

I prepped the veggies and added Crock Pot Chicken or Turkey Stock #263211 thawed from my freezer. I added the sea shell pasta and a small can of chicken breast chunks. I added the diced zucchini the last 5 minutes as directed. Had a delicious pot of soup done in about 20 minutes. The short cut (having home made broth in the freezer) really helps. Thanks for a great recipe Rona. Made for Choose Your Event Party.

[Chef floWer]

This was a very filling soup, I followed the recipe as written. I actually purchased a BBQ chicken from the deli because I didn't have much time yesterday and used the required amount for this recipe (I will use the left over chicken for tomorrow nights dinner). Micro-waving the chicken carcass and fresh thyme gave the water a lot of flavour. I used about four cups of water to make the stock but the pasta shells really soaked a lot of the stock, so I made another four cups using the same chicken carcass just to give it some flavour. This soup is definitely a kids pleasure, Little Miss (DD) really loved the soup. If I make this again I would add some more herbs or spices to the soup or even a can of diced tomatoes for hubby and I because it didn't have strong flavours. Thank you RonaNZ