Friday 19 October 2012

Gluten Free Chicken Soup That Anyone Can Make

gluten free chicken soup
Chicken Soup Goodness
Provided that you have shop bought gluten free chicken stock, making this soup takes less than 5 minutes to put together. It's incredibly easy, filling and perfect for those under the weather days when you need goodness but can't be bothered to cook. I wouldn't call this cooking!


For 2 large servings or 4 small ones.

Ingredients:

Bits of chicken*
5 Knorr Chicken Stock Pots (or your gluten free chicken stock of choice)
Carrots**
1 Large Onion
1.5 Litres of Cold Water
Pinch of Salt
100g Rice Vermicelli

*You can use whatever bits of chicken you have. I personally use breasts because they are something that I always have in my freezer. Using chicken bits on the bone such as thighs or drumsticks will give more flavour, so you may not need to use as much stock.

**This is rarely a planned meal so I make sure that I always have the ingredients needed for when we fancy having it on a whim. I use tinned baby carrots because of this, we only ever use carrots in this and fresh ones when a casserole is planned. If you want to use fresh, 2 large ones should do the trick.

Another thing that I do is use bottled water. The reason for this is because we live in an incredibly hard water area, you should see the inside of our kettle! Keeping our taps free from limescale takes a huge amount of effort, I don't want that stuff in my soup! This may or may not apply to you.

Directions:
  • Roughly dice the onion, peel and slice the carrots if using fresh. 
  • Put both into a large saucepan
  • Add the chicken and water, then add the stock
gluten free chicken soup base
Chicken, Onions, Carrots, Water and Stock
  • Bring to the boil then simmer for at least one hour
  • Taste and add salt if needed
And that's it for making the soup! The longer it simmers for the better the taste will be, I usually have mine on for at least 3 hours. You want a nice rich colour like this:

gluten free chicken soup in pan
It Smells Amazing
  • 20 minutes before serving put the rice vermicelli into the soup and submerge so that they soften. The noodles will have soaked up all the flavours from the soup by the time it's served.
gluten free chicken noodle soup
Noodles Softening
The trick to this soup is getting the best gluten free chicken stock possible. I've been using other stocks over the years of being gluten free but none have ever come close to my beloved Telma stock cubes that had been in my chicken soup since I was a baby. They have both gluten and pepper in so had to be ousted which was a very sad day because chicken soup is like medicine to me. Until I found the Knorr Chicken Stock Pots there was no point making chicken soup because the flavours just weren't right. Yes, I know I'm very particular and fussy when it comes to food! I did make my own stock from scratch but it just wasn't the same.

As a child I really didn't like food. The only things that my mum could get me to eat were her Telma made chicken soup and smoked salmon, and that was it. I didn't like crisps or sweets nothing other than those two things. The day I had to give up my Telma chicken stock cubes was daunting because even as an adult it was a meal that I would eat at least once a week, usually in a few sittings and especially if I needed comfort food. If a big pot of good chicken soup is on the hob, then all is right in my world.

I've said it before but I'll say it again, I love you Knorr! Because of you chicken soup is firmly back on the menu.

homemade gluten free chicken noodle soup
Yum!
*Happy Dance*

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