Chicken Soup | DON’T Make Chicken Broth Without These 3 Things

This is THE best chicken soup I know how to make. It checks all the boxes. Intensely flavorful from-scratch chicken broth, well-cooked veggies, and starch. And I’ll be sure to cover the three ingredients that I don’t make my chicken broth without so you can be sure that your chicken soup is the chickeniest soup that ever was. Recipe below.

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FOR THE BROTH AND CHICKEN MEAT

1 3-4 LB WHOLE CHICKEN
5LB CHICKEN BACKS
1.5 LBS CHICKEN FEET

30g or 2 TBPS KOSHER SALT
5g or 1.25 TSP SUGAR
5g or 1.5 TSP BLACK PEPPER
3g or 1.5 TSP GARLIC POWDER
5g or 2 TSP POULTRY SEASONING

TO COOK CHICKEN FOR SOUP AND BROTH
1. In a medium stainless bowl combine the chicken and…
2. Dry-brine in fridge for 2-12 hours. If going for 12 hours be aware of salt levels in final soup.
3. Slow roast at 300 degrees for 2.5 hours, rest bird for 30 minutes
4. Turn oven up to 400 degrees and roast feet and backs for 15-20 minutes ( not looking for hard roast or a lot of color)
5. While bones are roasting, pick meat off chicken, and set aside in fridge for later use in soup. Add 1 cup water to sheet tray chicken was roasted on and scrape up browned bits
6. Add browned goop to slow cooker or instant pot along with roasted backs and feet and 5 qts water
7. Slow cook for 6 hours ( stock pot on stove works too)
8. Strain off stock 6 hours later and skim off chicken fat, reserve for garnishing
9. Return stock to stove in large pot and reduce by 20 percent
10. While soup is reducing cut vegetables

200g or 1 LARGE LEEK
400g or 4-5 LARGE CARROTS
300g or 6 STALKS CELERY
200g or 2 BULB FENNEL

11. Strain reduced stock once more, return pot to stove and wipe out, add 2 tbps chicken fat and vegetables. Add 2 pinches salt and saute over medium high heat for 4-5 minutes.
12. Add in stock and bring to simmer, cook vegetables until just tender or about 8-10 minutes.
13. Chop chicken into bite sized pieces and add to soup once veggies are almost tender
14. Season with salt to taste, make sure to let chicken sit in broth for 3-4 minutes before any more salt is added, the chicken is really perfectly seasoned form the dry brine and it will let some salt off into broth
15. Pour over cooked noodle or rice (if doing pasta, cook till tender, strain off, and reserve till time to eat. I like to heat in microwave with a small splash of water in bowl covered with paper towel to steam back to life real quick. Adding noodle and rice at the end ensures they don’t absorb all of our amazing broth we spent so much time on.
16. GARNISH WITH CHICKEN FAT and a lot of black pepper

FOR THE RICE

300g water
400g RICE
7g SALT

Or per package instructions

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#chickensoup #chickenricesoup #chickennoodlesoup #bestchickensoup #chickenbroth

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what’s up my sister texted me asking me how to make great chicken soup so instead of texting her back naturally i spent four days making this video to show her the best process i know for perfect chicken soup for me the most important thing about chicken soup is that you have a really rich flavorful chicken broth if you don’t have that it’s pretty much game over i’ve made a lot of stock in restaurants and i think i’ve boiled it down to the three things you need to have to have perfect chicken broth but i’m gonna be getting into that as we go here first things first perfect chicken soup of course is gonna start with perfect chicken so to get started i’m gonna grab a three to four pound whole chicken and i’m gonna dry brine it i’m gonna throw it into my medium stainless steel bowl and into that i’m gonna measure 30 grams of salt five grams of sugar five grams of black pepper three grams of garlic powder and five grams of poultry seasoning once that’s measured out i’m gonna massage everything into the skin of this bird making sure to get as much of this dry brine stuck to the outside as i can at that point i’m going to transfer this over to a wire rack on a quarter sheet tray and let it cure in the fridge for as little as two hours and as many as 12 hours i prefer to let mine go overnight because it gives me a perceivably juicier chicken overall but with a long brine like this remember you’re gonna have to be really careful in the end with the salt levels in the final soup 12 hours later i’ve got a really well seasoned bird to do things right and not ruin it i’m going to preheat my oven to 300 degrees load in the bird and slow roast it for two and a half hours okay it’s been 150 minutes and i’m gonna pull this bird out of the oven yes this bird looks really good i’m gonna check the temperature here real quick for good measure but the slow and low method of chicken cooker is gonna go way over the prescribed 165 and you can see here that we’re at 180 degrees in the breast but it doesn’t really matter the flesh has held onto its moisture because high heat didn’t squeeze it out and the skin has been slowly rendering and basting chicken fat all over this meat for two and a half hours okay to make the broth of this soup super charged with chicken flavor like i said we have the three ingredients that we’re gonna get in there to get all that flavor the first one here is chicken backs i have two packages or about five pounds here total chicken backs are cheap and pretty widely available you just kind of got to look for them in the corners of your grocery stores in my case this was five pounds for about four dollars at the store next i’m adding in some chicken feet this is the second ingredient that we’re adding to make super flavorful chicken broth and yeah i’ll admit it chicken feet are pretty gnarly looking these things have toenails on them these feet are gonna give a lot of gelatin and collagen into our stock and it’s gonna give it a nice glossy almost stick to your lips meaty texture i got these at the asian supermarket by my house and i had to buy more than i need for this recipe i’m only putting about a pound and a half on this sheet tray the rest of them are going to go into a deli container and then i’m going to throw them in my freezer because it’s going to be a long winter where i live in the northern hemisphere and i’m definitely going to be souping a lot now to bring out more chicken flavor in these bones i’m going to turn my oven up to 400 degrees and throw them into roast for 15 to 20 minutes while those are roasting i’m gonna pull the meat off the chicken we just roasted it’s been resting for 30 minutes and all the moisture is now stable in the meat at this point when it comes to picking chicken there’s really no art and science you’re just pulling off chunks of meat and tearing them down a little bit but make sure to treat yourself to a little chicken snack that stuff’s been perfectly roasted it’s still kind of warm and there is no time like the present for a little chicken snack once all that meat’s picked off the carcass i’m gonna set that bowl aside and then to actually make the broth i’m gonna grab my instant pot so the third thing that we need to make perfect chicken broth is gonna be the first thing into this instant pot and that’s these roasted chicken bones once those are in i’m going to grab a wooden spoon and i’m going to scrape up all those fondy bits on the bottom of this sheet tray and clearly doing it dry is the hard way so i’m going to add about a cup of water on there and use that to scrape things up i’m going to pour this delicious chickeny brown goop into the instant pot and then i’m gonna pull the backs and feet out of the oven as you can see this wasn’t a really hard roast we just wanted to hit them with some dry heat for about 15 minutes to make them more flavorful and render out some of that excessive chicken fat this is also going to help us skip the step where you have to skim the stock when it comes up in classic french cooking you would do a lot of that with a ladle at the top as it’s coming up to a boil because the stock gets scummy and all the impurities come out when we roast it in the oven you’re kind of neutralizing that step and saving yourself some time in the end we’re gonna have a much clearer less gunky stock just because we put them in the oven for 15 minutes before these go in the pot i’m gonna dump off all that excessive rendered fat and then i’m gonna scoop them in i’m gonna fill this instant pot with about five quarts of water total this is enough water to cover the bones and to yield us enough finished stock for all that chicken we just picked once everything’s in there i’m gonna pop the lid on this instant pot but make sure that the valve is set to open so that we can slow cook this for six hours if you wanted to you could go for as long as 10 or maybe 12 hours if you wanted to sleep or go to work in the middle of your soup making experience totally up to you you could also definitely use a stock pot if you don’t have an instant pot oh yeah and here’s a quick detail if you’re going to be refrigerating cooked shredded chicken or really any meat for that matter i like to put it in a container and press as much air out of it as you can and then cover with plastic wrap when cooked meat is exposed to air it gets oxidized really fast and takes on a real leftover z mineral flavor and it really dries out six hours later i’m going to come back and pop off the top of this instant pot and this chicken stock looks so good it’s golden and it has an almost comic book yellow chicken color to it you can already see that the feet have given us a really nice rich body to the broth it’s not watery and thin like store-bought boxed stock can be okay next i’m going to strain this stock through my fine mesh strainer this is called a shinwa but it’s spelled weird it’s kind of looks like shin noise but this is my preferred strainer it’s pretty much standard hardware at the pro level and i highly recommend you having one since this pot is really full super hot and kind of heavy i’m gonna start by ladling it first through the strainer and then i’m gonna try and figure out how to pour it off safely and there we go since this is a four quart container and we have roughly five quarts of stock i’m going to strain the rest of it into my dutch oven there’s a lot of chicken fat on top here and before we simmer this down we want to remove that fat i like to use my soup ladle to do that and just gently scoop it off the top i’m going to reserve some of this clean chicken fat or schmaltz for later on and you’re going to see why in a few minutes once all that fat is strained off we’ve got one more move to make this broth as chickenedly as humanly possible we’re going to concentrate it a bit by simmering it on medium heat and reducing it by about 25 but don’t boil it too hard any remaining fat or impurities in there will get emulsified into the stock and make it cloudy and kind of gross if it’s ripping super hard at a boil for too long while that stock reduces i’m going to take this chance to finish off the rest of my prep for that i’m going to grab one large leak and cut it in half as you can see leeks get pretty dirty and that’s just from the way that they’re grown the way to mitigate that is to cut off the greens and the stem and then cut it in half and then take it over to the sink and just rinse out under those layers the best you can from there i’m going to cut these halves in half one more time from top to bottom and then i’m going to cut these into quarter inch size pieces this leek is going to bring some mellow sweetness and some oniony aroma to the soup but it’s really subtle i like it way more than just having boiled onions in my soups we’re looking for about 200 grams or one and a half cups of leeks total okay next is the carrots and guess what the b-boy got a new peeler finally thanks to my cousin nicole she sent me some of these super dope japanese peelers oh wow effortless motion like a machine zipping off the peel i’m peeling about four to five large carrots here and then i’m going to dice them into about medium-sized chunks when i get to the thick end of this carrot where things get a little bit chunky i’m going to cut those in half like this and then i’m going to run my knife through them one more time i’m going to go ahead and cut the rest of these carrots up real quick and since i think chicken soup needs a lot of carrots we’re gonna go with 400 grams of these total next up is gonna be celery and that’s pretty self-explanatory i’m using about six ribs here total and i’m gonna zip those down the middle and then cut them into chunks about the same size as the carrot that’s gonna be 300 grams total of celery and we’ve got one more vegetable before we move on i ran out to the garden to get this one if you’re wondering this is fennel and it’s clearly just a flex i wanted to show you guys that i could grow it but i’m proud look at them they’re super pretty i’m just going to clean these up by ripping off all that dirty end and then we’re going to cut them into roughly equal sized pieces just like the celery and the carrot we need about 200 grams of fennel total and i’m just going to scoop that into the bowl with everything else and here we go as you can see everything here is a reasonable sized piece of food they’re all going to fit on a spoon with each other they’re going to get along and if you’re lucky you can get some chicken on that spoon as well chicken back on our broth it’s been about 25 minutes and it’s reduced by about 20 to 25 we’re gonna strain it off one more time to get rid of any coagulated chicken gunk and then return our dutch oven to medium heat and wipe it out once that’s reheated i’m gonna take two tablespoons of that chicken fat from earlier and i’m gonna heat that up i’m going to add in all the vegetables and saute those over medium heat and hit them with two good pinches of salt and cook those off for about four to five minutes look i think a lot of people here would just throw these vegetables right into that boiling broth and call it a day but if you really want great perfect delicious chicken soup you gotta sweat them off a little bit we’re evaporating some of the water out of those vegetables we’re also flavoring the chicken fat that’s gonna sit on top of the soup it’s gonna taste like leeks and fennel and you’re gonna get a little taste and it’s gonna be totally sick so we’re gonna sweat them off any questions oh yeah and i forgot we’re gonna be adding in three to four cloves of garlic here and for the sake of ease i’m just gonna smash them up and use my garlic press and i’m not ashamed of it i use a garlic press whatever dude once things are starting to get tender in the pot and the veggies have lost some of their water we’re going to add in all that reduced chicken stock and bring it to a gentle simmer and cook everything until it’s fully tender while that’s finishing off we finally have to talk about the starchy part of the soup you have two options basically as far as i see it you can go with a chicken rice soup great option or a chicken noodle soup also great option today i’m going to be going with a chicken rice soup because that’s just what i prefer and to do that we’re going to take 300 grams of this kel rose rice that’s a medium grain rice that’s really starchy and sits in our soup really well on top of that i’m going to add 400 grams of cold tap water and 7 grams of salt i’m going to stir all that up to combine pop it in my rice cooker and call it a day if you want to make chicken noodle soup follow all the steps for this recipe just add in cooked pasta at the end instead of rice one last thing i want to note here is that we are cooking the rice and or the pasta ahead of time and adding it in at the very very end when we pour the soup we’re actually doing it in the bowl that way we don’t have mushy overcooked rice and pasta absorbing all of the chicken broth that we spent all day and 12 dollars making okay one last prep item here is to break down the chicken we picked earlier i want the size of this to be relatively similar to the chunks of vegetables in our soup so to do that just grab your knife run it through once rotate the whole thing 90 degrees and then run it through one or two more times once that’s chopped i’m going to add the chicken into the broth just as the vegetables are getting tender i’m going to stir all that up to combine and let that sit just for a second before we actually give it a taste the chicken itself is really well seasoned and it’s going to give off some salt as it sits in the broth so we want to make sure that we’re not going too far and over seasoning our salt i’ve easily done that three or four times in the past and it’s really hard to come back from okay after giving this a taste i feel comfortable with where it’s at i’m going to add a little bit more salt and taste it again it tastes so intensely chickeny but it’s still light and not dark and heavy the leek in the fennel here brings some really nice round freshness and of course the celery and carrot are standard issue classic chicken soup stuff real quick before we look at the finished bowl of soup check this out i cooled it off and the next day it became pure meaty jello thanks to those chicken feet this broth is super rich very very flavorful and wow i mean look at this it shakes let’s eat this [Music] thing [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] so that’s the best chicken soup i know how to make there’s a lot of steps yes but it’s worth it great chicken soup is part of a dignified life you guys and there’s a long winter ahead so be prepared let me know in the comments down below if you guys are for chicken rice or chicken noodle as always guys thank you so much for your time and attention thank you for sticking around and we’ll see you next time i got it i slayed it