Seeing as how we’ve had one day of sunshine in the last several weeks (it feels like years), soup has been appealing to us lately. A great way to drive away the gloom and the cold and to support a healthy immune system, chicken soup has been used for generations. Gentle, healing and nourishing, it is a great option for this gloomy early winter weather. It’s also essential to healing a damaged digestive system.
There are many different ways to make chicken soup depending on your personal tastes and preferences. This is a simple way that I made soup for my family this last week as we were dealing with respiratory illness and the stomach flu.
Easy Chicken Soup
1 L. homemade chicken stock
1/2 L. filtered water (if desired)
3-4 organic chicken legs (or other cut of chicken)
1-2 carrots, sliced
1-2 sticks of celery, sliced
1 onion, diced
1 bay leaf
several cloves of garlic
sea salt/pepper to taste
1. Bring your chicken stock and water to a boil, then reduce heat and add all remaining ingredients except garlic and sea salt.
2. Allow to gently simmer for 30 minutes or so, and then add the garlic. Allow to simmer an additional 15-30 minutes, until chicken is cooked thoroughly and falls off the bone. Remove from heat, debone chicken and add meat back to the soup.
3. Season with sea salt and pepper to taste and serve. A little sour cream or yogurt could also be added to this soup after it cools.
This recipe is appropriate for GAPS stage one if you omit the celery and pepper. Cooked celery is added in stage three; pepper can be consumed in stage five along with other spices. Also, if you are stage two or further along in Intro, you can add 1-2 Tbs. of ghee to the soup as it’s cooking.
Stay warm and healthy
~ Alicia
Healthy Home Body LLC 