BBQ Chicken Soup - 52 Soup Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to soup? ›

Here are some ideas to liven up your canned soups and make them taste more like homemade: Sauté some onions and/or garlic: Low and slow is the way to go. Then deglaze the pan (a splash of wine will unstick all those caramelized yummy bits on the bottom of the pan). Stir these yummies into the soup.

Cold-poaching the chicken breasts, then removing them until the end of the cooking process, guarantees a perfectly tender and juicy texture. Using stock reinforces the flavor of the broth, creating a more deeply flavorful soup.

For clear, brothy soups, stock is your most important ingredient. If you want to make a good soup, you need to use an excellently flavored stock — otherwise, the entire pot could be tasteless.

While broth and stock both get richer and richer the longer you cook them, the problem is that the chicken meat will dry out and get tough if you let it go too long.

Cornstarch is a great option as it is a natural thickening agent, but you'll want to be careful about how much you use. Start with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch whisked together with cold water to create a slurry. Then, gradually add the slurry to the soup, letting it boil for one to two minutes before adding more.

One gallon will give you about 25 - 30 side portions, one-quart yields 6 -7 servings, one pint serves 3 – 4 and ½ pint serves 1 – 2.

How much stock should I put in soup? ›

The Stock or Broth. Once you've built up your soup's foundation with aromatics and seasonings, it's time to add a stock or broth. No single element in a soup wields as much influence on its taste as its liquid. You will want about a cup per serving: a little more for a brothy soup, a little less for a hearty one.

We first make the stock and later add the raw chicken meat to cook near the end of the soup-making process. You could also cook the breast and thigh chicken pieces whole, in the broth, and remove them after 15 minutes of cooking or so, cool them and shred them to be added at service.

Place chicken, carrots, celery, and onion in a large soup pot; add enough cold water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium heat; reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, until meat falls off of the bone, about 90 minutes. Skim off foam every so often, as needed.

Light, thin, and full of flavor, broth tastes good on its own or as a base for all kinds of soup. We like to use it as a substitute for water when we're making rice, stew, or polenta.

You can extract a clean, strong broth from a combination of water and several pantry ingredients. It's all about layering powerful flavor-enhancers that you probably already have on hand—bacon, tomato paste, herbs, peppercorns, a Parmesan rind, and, of course, kosher salt.

A soup's quality is determined by its flavor, appearance and texture. A good soup should be full-flavored, with no off or sour tastes. Flavors from each of the soup's ingre- dients should blend and complement, with no one flavor overpowering another.

A squeeze of citrus, a dollop of yogurt or a drizzle of cream, a dusting of cheese or a good chile powder, a sprinkling of some herbs or croutons — all can take a perfectly fine soup into the realm of the delectable. Even a spiral of good olive oil to finish and some coarse sea salt can do wonders.