Chicken and Rice Soup from Scratch

Last week, I was in the bathroom blow drying my hair and Mike came in saying he had an idea for a video that he wanted to shoot. Like right then. As you know, he’s not a fan of being on social media pretty much at all, and I fully respect it. Usually when I post, it’s because I’ve asked if I can. He was volunteering the post and had the idea ready to go? I dropped everything and made the video happen.

And got lunch out of it too, so it was a win/win 😉

I’m not necessarily a bad cook, I can follow a recipe just fine, but I’m not the kind of person who can look in my fridge and know what to do. Mike rarely follows recipes and just makes it happen as it goes. He walked through how he made the soup and I’ll do my best to translate it into a recipe for the post. It’s VERY simple though. And the idea behind is to use what you have in your fridge so you’re not having to waste or throw out anything. Eliminating food waste has been one of our goals that we’re constantly working on, but especially now we’re taking it even more seriously. We figure if people are putting themselves at risk to serve food, deliver food, package food, or sell food, it would be a shame to let even an ounce of food go to waste.

 

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A post shared by Carly A. Heitlinger (@carly) on May 4, 2020 at 11:37am PDT

INGREDIENTS MIKE USED (but use what you have!):

– Pre-cooked rice (we always make extra so we have it in the fridge)

– Chicken stock

– Scallion

– Garlic

– Shallot

– Yellow onion

– Ginger (watch the video for why, but it was actually delicious!)

– Celery

– Carrots

– Smoked chicken (you can pretty much use any protein or skip altogether)

– Extra virgin olive oil

– Salt/Pepper

– Dried thyme

– Crushed red pepper

HOW TO MAKE:

1. Chop celery, carrots, yellow onion, and shallots.

2. Begin with a heavy coated oil in a heavy bottom pot (Mike used our new 5.5 quart dutch oven) over medium heat. Add celery, carrots, onion, and shallots. Season with salt and pepper, don’t be shy.

3. While that’s cooking, chop garlic and green onions. Add to the pot with veggies and cook until you smell the garlic get fragrant. Add some dried thyme here. Don’t overcook the vegetables! You want them to still have a little crunch– not complete mush.

4. Add chicken stock (or broth). Mike’s been making his own! Bring to a boil.

5. While that’s heating up, cut chicken into cubes.

6. Reduce the soup to low, and add chicken. Slowly add rice until it has the consistency you want. Simmer until carrots are fork tender.

7. Prepare the garnish while the soup simmers. Peel the ginger and grate it. Slice scallions to top.

8. Serve the soup with grated ginger and scallions on top. ENJOY.