This is my husbands favorite meal… and he doesn’t even really like soups! He requests this often.
Place chicken, onion, garlic and salt in large pot. Add filtered water to cover the chicken.
Bring to a slow boil. Skim and discard foam. Cover and lower heat to maintain a simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 25 minutes. If using a whole chicken, cook 45 - 60 minutes.
Remove chicken from pot, let cool. Allow broth to simmer uncovered so that it reduces in volume by about half.
Process cooled chicken reserving bones in one bowl and chicken meat in another bowl. Save the skin and fat in a third bowl.
Shred or chop the meat and set aside. Save the bones in the freezer for another batch of broth. Put the skin and fat in a small food processor along with a little broth. Process until smooth. Set aside. Do not skip this step. It adds much nourishment and satisfaction to the final soup.
Remove onion and garlic from broth. Reserve broth.
In a large pot over medium heat, saute onion in oil until translucent. Add the garlic, cumin and chili powder; saute for a minute or so. Add reserved broth, salsa and processed chicken skin/fat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 15 minutes (or up to a couple of hours). Add chicken and frozen corn heat until warm. Taste for seasoning.
Serve with organic tortilla chips, cheese, sour cream and/or kefir
Sauerkraut Cabbage Soup is one of those warm, filling winter soups that takes advantage of a long simmer. Although it can come together on the stove top in about an hour if you are so inclined. It has a chicken broth base with shredded cabbage, sauerkraut, carrots, potatoes and pork. These humble ingredients create a satisfying meal.
In a large pot on the stove or your slow cooker add the stock, pork, water, allspice, bay leaves, marjoram, potato, carrots, onion, cabbage, sauerkraut, salt and black pepper.
Simmer for a minimum 20 minutes on the stove or six to eight hours in the slow cooker. Before serving mix in the sauerkraut and its juice and cook for an additional ten minutes. Taste for flavor and add more salt if needed.
Not the typical curried pumpkin soup. This smooth pumpkin soup uses Thai red curry paste (I use Mae Ploy) to give it a bit of a kick. You can choose to use more or less red curry paste as your taste prefers. This recipe calls for a modest amount of curry that should suit most pallets.
The pumpkins are roasted in the oven to give them a more robust sweetness that blends perfectly with the spicy curry. Great for cold winter evening family meals.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Cut each pumpkin in halves or quarters and rub butter all over them. Sprinkle generously with salt. Place on a baking sheet skin sides down and put in the oven. Bake for for about an hour or until the pumpkins are tender.
Allow pumpkins to cool enough to handle and then scoop out the seeds and pulp. Then scoop the flesh into a blender. Add coconut milk and curry paste. Blend until you have a thick base.
Pour pumpkin base into a heavy bottomed soup pot and add chicken stock until the soup is the consistency you prefer. Bring to a simmer and add salt and additional curry paste to your taste. Simmer for about 7-10 minutes.
Oh my, oh my. Best chili I’ve ever made. My children, who don’t usually like chili actually like it. My husband loves it. I adapted this recipe from one in The Primal Blueprint Cookbook. I used a huge cast iron skillet to make this chili. You could also use a large pot. This makes a large amount and would be easy to cut in half.
In a large skillet or pot, heat the bacon fat over medium heat until melted.
Add in the onions and cook until soft, about 10 - 15 minutes.
Add in the garlic and cook for 5 minutes more.
Add in the ground beef and cook until done, breaking up as you go.
Add in the tomatoes, broth, oregano, paprika and chili powder. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add in the vinegars and seasoned salt. Simmer for another 15 minutes.
Serve with shredded cheese and sour cream if desired.
This soup is an Asian adaptation on traditional butternut squash soup - creamy and delicious, with just the right hints of taste-bud pleasing flavor. Filling enough for a meal, or use smaller portions as a starter. This is a favorite autumn recipe of kids and adults in my family!
Melt butter in 3-4 quart pot.
Add onion, ginger, garlic, and chili. Cook until onion is softened.
Add squash, salt, and pepper, and saute for 5 minutes.
Add stock. Simmer for 20 minutes or until squash is tender.
Blend in batches in blender until smooth. Add back to pot.
Take one ladel of soup, add to a small bowl, and mix with the nut butter. Add back to soup pot.
Squeeze lime into soup.
To serve, sprinkle with cilantro and dollop with yogurt and coconut creme.
This recipe has all the great flavor of that famous Italian restaurant’s soup — but packs a power punch of taste and nutrition with wholesome and healthy ingredients. After making this recipe kosher and increasing the Whole-Food Goodness Factor, this is a one-pot-crowd-pleaser that will leave everyone asking for one ladle more.
(Hint: If you’re looking for a way to sneak kale from your garden to your family — THIS IS IT!)
In a large pot, sauté the onion and salt in butter until glossy.
Add the sausage and cook until browned, breaking into bite-size pieces.
Stir in minced garlic, cooking until fragrant (about 30 seconds).
Add chicken broth, scraping up the brown bits with a spoon — a free, yummy flavor boost!
Add potato cubes and simmer (covered) for 15 minutes or until potatoes are soft.
Add kale (it will wilt — always add more than you think) and cream, simmering 5 minutes more.
Garnish with pepper and serve.
Congee, also known as Zhou, Kayu, Chok, Jook and other names depending on the culture, is a thick rice porridge made typically from white rice. There are countless variations to how and what it is eaten with. Sometimes it is served as a meal in itself paired with meats, veggies, condiments and other toppings. Other times it’s served plain as a side dish with only soy sauce. In most cultures it is served as a breakfast or late supper, but in others is eaten plain as a snack from a street vendor. Because it is well cooked in copious amounts of bone broth (at least this version-it can be made plain in water as well), it is considered food medicine and is easily digestible and good for the digestive tract.
We make a large batch in the crockpot and keep it warm for several days, scooping out a bowl as often as we want it and topping with prepared veggies and condiments in the fridge. Change your toppings up each time to keep it new and enjoyable. This is a wonderful way to get your daily bone broth supplement if you have a hard time drinking plain broth.
Rinse brown rice well and cover with filtered water. Add the acidyfier. Cover and allow to soak for at least 8 hours, but preferably 24.
Drain and rinse rice (reserve 10 % soaking water if using the grain water method.)
Place rice, ginger, garlic and chicken stock into a crockpot and set to High. Cook for 6-12 hours or until rice is super soft and broken and the congee is thick and creamy. Or cook on LOW for 10-14 hours then set the crockpot to warm and enjoy for several days (stir often and add more stock/water as necessary to keep it from sticking on the bottom). Be sure to check the crockpot every once in a while during the cooking process and skim off any foam or scum that rises to the surface.
*Fermenting brown rice before cooking it allows to anti-nutrients like phytic acid to break down and the grain to become more digestible. You can ferment your grains by adding live whey drained from yogurt or kefir that has active cultures, raw apple cider vinegar like Bragg’s, or by using the grain water method.
The grain water soaking method works by soaking brown rice in plain filtered water for 24 hours, drain off and reserve 10%-which keeps a long time in the fridge. Cook rice in fresh water as usual. Next time, soak your rice in fresh water to cover plus the reserved soaking liquid for 24 hours. Drain, again reserving 10% and cook the rice as usual in fresh water. Repeat this cycle of reserving 10% and always adding the previous reserved soaking water to your next soak and eventually up to 96% of phytic acid will be reduced in 24 hours. Meanwhile you get to eat healthy and nutritious whole grains. Read more about the grain water soaking method here.
**Serve topped with you choice of toppings:
Mushrooms
Tamari
Chjopped scallions
Boiled Egg
Poached Egg
Chopped Chicken
Kimchi
Sauerkraut
Cilantro
Cabbage
Gingered Carrots
Julienne Carrots
Fresh Parsley
Snap Peas
Fried or Carmelized Onions
Serrano Chilis
Cayenne Pepper
Cold-pressed sesame oil
Coconut Milk
Coconut Oil
Toasted Peanuts
Lime
Avocado
Chili at it’s best… filling, healthy, and full of flavor!
Melt the lamb lard on low heat in a 5 quart cast iron Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed kettle.
Add the chopped red onion and saute, turning up the heat a little, until the onion is softened.
Add the ground lamb meat, stir and chop it until all of the meat has browned.
Add tomatoes, tomato juice, chili beans, chili powder, salt and herbs*.
Bring to a boil. Cover. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
* When fresh herbs are available in the garden, I gather enough of the rosemary, thyme, oregano and basil, that when it is chopped finely together, there is about 1/4 of a cup. If you do not have fresh herbs, use 1 tablespoon of a mixture of the herbs, roughly in equal proportions.
We like to serve this over cornbread and top it with cottage cheese.
You can, of course, make substitutions but the the flavor will be affected. This combination is particularly delicious.
I make these soup enhancers out of strongly flavored greens from spring and fall garden. I use mustard greens, kales, arugula, and broccoli leaves. These soup enhancers go well in just about any soup, pot roast, or other dish that could use a flavor boost.
Place the greens and water in a blender, food processor, or in a wide mouth jar for an immersion blender.
Finely chop the greens with your choice appliance.
Fill the ice cube tray with greens. Add any excess water to the green filled cubes. Adding the excess water will allow you to remove the green cubes easier from the ice cube tray.
Freeze over night.
Remove the green cubes from the ice cube tray and move to an air tight container in the freezer or toss in any smoothie, soup, pot roast, or other dish that you want to add extra flavor and vitamins to.
Compared with other legumes, lentils require much less cooking time. They are rich in in minerals, two of the B vitamins, protein, and high in fiber. They readily absorb the flavors of the dish they are cooked in and so are versatile. This simple soup is delicious and comforting. We like to eat it with some properly prepared corn bread and plenty of butter. Another nice way to serve it is poured over some cooked rice.
Pour the lentils into a colander, rinse them, and pour into a non-reactive bowl. Cover the lentils with plenty of filtered water.
Add 2 Tablespoons raw vinegar, lemon juice or live whey. Cover and let soak for 24 hours.
When you are ready to assemble the soup, drain and rinse the lentils. Pour them into a large saucepan.
Add the stock, onion, potato, celery, bay leaves, and olive oil.
Add enough filtered water to cover the lentils by at least 2 inches. (As the soup simmers, check occasionally to make sure there is enough liquid.)
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 1/2 - 1 hour, until the lentils are very tender.
Add the salt just prior to serving. Remove bay leaves.
This soup reheats and freezes well. Some in our family like to add a little hot sauce to this.
From my family cookbook, an adaptable, simple but hearty soup. Perfect for a lunch, delightful with a hearty bread and salad.
In a stockpot put ground beef, cover with stock or water. Heat to a simmer and cook meat, breaking it into bit sized chunks as it cooks.
Add seasonings, tomatoes and frozen veggies. Add any desired optional ingredients.
Simmer until cooked/heated through 20-30 minutes maximum.
Serve with sourdough bread or salad or just as a hearty lunch
I love broccoli and beef in anything so I brought the two together in this simple soup! Chinese 5-spice powder adds a unique new flavor if you’re bored with salt and herb varieties of soups – especially on GAPS.
This makes a large pot of soup since we always like leftovers. Please note that the ginger and garlic is rough chopped. There is no need for minced perfection in this soup! I also use the broccoli stems because I hate waste. I peel them if they seem too tough to cook or digest easily.
Bring broth and stew meat to a boil and then lower to a rolling simmer. Let the beef cook for about an hour, checking to see that it’s cooked completely. You can also slow simmer it longer if your stew meat is tough and you’d like it to become more tender.
Add the coconut aminos, sesame oil, 5 spice, ginger, garlic and broccoli and bring it back to a boil.
Cook 3-5 minutes until the broccoli is soft enough to easily pierce with a fork, but still green.
Dish up and add mint and cilantro to each bowl.
Enjoy!