soup with chicken

Quick and delicious quinoa soup with chicken and vegetables

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I like to eat soup all year around, but autumn is definitely the start of the soup season. While zucchini soup is the favorite summer treat, in autumn I rather cook a soup with potatoes aka paprikash and this quinoa soup with chicken and vegetables. What is different about this soup compared to others is one unusual ingredient. This green thing you can see in the soup is nettle

What is nettle leaf and how to use it? 

Nettle is a stinging herb that has a strong and rich taste. Store-bought nettle is already dried and ready to use, so you don’t need to worry about getting rash while plucking the stinging nettle. 

If your hemoglobin or iron levels are low, you can consult with your doctor about adding the nettle to your diet. Aside from nettle tea it is great in soups and stews. Similar to other herbs, you add the dry nettle in the last 10 minutes of cooking. 

How to make vegetable soup with chicken? 

There are three ways to cook chicken in soup:

  • Use the whole chicken to make the chicken stock. After 30 minutes of cooking remove the chicken and place it in a pan to roast it. This would be a vegetable soup with chicken stock but without chicken in it. 
  • Cook only chicken bones or chicken thighs. You can either leave them in the soup or take them out and stir fry them or bake.
  • Make the soup with chicken breasts. It takes less time to cook chicken breasts than other parts of chicken. You will have a chicken soup ready in no time. It goes well with all kinds of vegetables. Below you can see what I put in my chicken soup. 

How to make soup with chicken breasts?

If you want to eat chicken in the soup, debone it and cut it. Stir fry it with veggies, add plenty of water and season it well. In the end, add noodles, quinoa or dumplings. 

You can cook the whole chicken breasts if you won’t eat it in the soup. When the chicken is cooked and that water in the pot has become chicken stock, you can remove it and use it in many ways (salads, wraps, sandwiches) 

How to make soup with chicken, nettle and quinoa 

  1. Debone the chicken breasts and cut them in small chunks. 
  2. Prepare the veggies that always go first in the pot, before meat. In my recipe for soup with chicken I added chopped leeks and some garlic. Instead of leeks you can add yellow onions. 
  3. When leeks and garlic are softened, add the chopped chicken breasts and carrot to the pot. 
  4. Add more oil if necessary and reduce the heat. When the meat is cooked add water and chopped potato. 
  5. Season the soup with salt and pepper. 
  6. In the last 10 minutes of cooking add quinoa and nettle to the pot. 

What to use instead of quinoa? 

If you don’t like to eat quinoa or to use it in soups, you can add noodles or dumplings. I don’t mean Chinese dumplings but these:

These soup dumplings taste awesome and they are so easy to make:

Beat one egg, add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and three tablespoons of semolina. Add a teaspoon of salt and whisk nicely, then add two more tablespoons of semolina and stir. Leave it in the fridge for five minutes. In the last minutes of cooking soup, add this dumplings mixture with a tablespoon, one at a time. They are ready once they appear on the surface. Remove them from the pot and serve them separately. Add them to the plate of chicken soup just before eating. 

soup with chicken
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5 from 1 vote

Quinoa soup with chicken, veggies and nettle

This hearty meal is an all-in-one soup packed with meat, vegetables, a very healthy herb and quinoa.
Prep Time10 mins
Cook Time20 mins
Total Time30 mins
Course: dinner, lunch, Main Course, Soup
Cuisine: American, Balkan
Keyword: chicken, nettle, potatoes, quinoa
Servings: 4 people
Calories: 350kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 potato
  • 1 carrot
  • 1/2 leeks
  • 250 g chicken breast
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 3 tbsp of uncooked quinoa
  • 3 or 4 tbsp dry nettle

Instructions

  • Debone the chicken breasts and cut them in small chunks.
  • Chop the leek and garlic and add them to the deep pot. Chop potatoes and carrot.
  • Once the leek and garlic are softened add chicken and carrots. Add more oil if necessary and reduce the heat.
  • When the meat is cooked add water and chopped potato.
  • Season the chicken soup with salt and pepper.
  • In the last 10 minutes of cooking add quinoa and nettle to the pot.

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