Meal Train Chicken Soup

a recipe and a reflection

For the last year or so, I’ve stopped putting pressure on myself to make something new and shiny for meal trains. I’ve gotten into a good rhythm where I put together a double (or sometimes triple) batch of chicken soup, saving half for my family and sharing half with the family in need. Postpartum? Chicken soup. Hospital recovery? Chicken soup. Illness in the home? Chicken soup.

I love this cobbled-together recipe for a lot of reasons: it’s colorful (eat the rainbow, am I right?), it’s baby and toddler friendly (both in the prep and in the eating), it’s infinitely adjustable for allergies or preferences, and it’s so easy to scale and batch-make.

But before this becomes a full on food-blog post, where you have to scroll through an endless essay to get the goods, here is the recipe for the Dietz family Meal Train Chicken Soup.

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Ingredients

• Rotisserie Chicken

• Apple Cider Vinegar

• Bay Leaf

• Water

• Carrots

• Celery

• Garlic

• Onions (Red and White/Yellow)

• Bell Peppers (Red, Orange, and Yellow)

• Potatoes (Medley Mix, with the purple ones if you can find them)

• Spices (Salt, Pepper, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, just a dash of ginger and turmeric)

Steps

• Remove the meat from your chicken. Chop the meat into bite-sized pieces and store in an airtight container.

• Place your chicken carcass (including some remaining meat, skin, etc. but NOT the string that tied the thing together) into your largest stock pot. Fill 3/4 full with water. Add a swirl of the best apple cider vinegar you have on hand. If you’d like, add spices and vegetables to taste // whatever scraps you’ve set aside for broth.

• Bring to a boil. Cover, lower heat, and simmer for a few hours.

• While the broth simmers, dice the rest of your add-ins.

• Strain the broth and set it to the side. (If you’ve added vegetables, these can be set aside for any baby-led weaning escapades or homemade purees you may be interested in pursuing.)

• In the stockpot, sautee carrots, onions, garlic and celery in your preferred oil until soft.

• Add potatoes, bell peppers, chicken, and spices. Mix well.

• Pour the broth back into the stockpot, reserving any extra in your fridge or freezer for another day. Bring the soup to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and let simmer for 30-40 minutes until potatoes are soft.

• Season to taste, if needed.

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Now, back to singing the praises of this particular chicken soup.

First, scaling. If you’re the type of person who prefers to roast your own chickens, then by all means, don’t buy the rotisserie and do it from scratch yourself! But if you’re on a time crunch or in a challenging season yourself, then buy the already-shredded chicken, the boxed broth, and the frozen mirepoix. No shame here.

Second, HELPERS. My daughters are desperate to be helpful in the kitchen, and I am often desperate to direct that energy into a non-essential task so that I don’t accidentally chop off someone’s fingers. With so much chopping, this is a perfect recipe to let the kids help out. After minimal instruction, my little ones (3.5 and 2 years old) could use kid-safe knives (we have these, thanks Aunt Gigi) to cut the chicken into small pieces. Even though their attention span was shorter than the task at hand, they were unable to do any damage to the chicken—I just finished chopping it myself after they ran off to play baby dolls. Older kids might be able to chop bell peppers or celery easily, and teenagers could handle carrots and onions with ease.¹ Mixing spices in a bowl (and measuring them, if you’re into that sort of thing or your kids are learning about fractions) is another good job for children to help with.

Third, allergies. This recipe is naturally free of most of the major allergens, and all the veggies in it are easy to substitute. I know some women avoid bell peppers while nursing due to reflux. Some people can’t or don’t want to have starchy potatoes. Substitute for (or add in!) sweet potatoes, zucchini, yellow or butternut squash, cabbage, tomatoes, kale, peas, corn, mushrooms, barley, pasta (gluten-free or gluten-annoying²), rice, beans… Heck, you could even use vegetable broth and avoid the chicken altogether for a vegetarian dish if you really wanted to.³ There is so much room for personal taste within this recipe that still gets you a wide variety of nutrients to support a healthy recovery.

Fourth, flexibility. You can prep the whole thing and bring a full pot or tupperware to the door of the person you’re serving. You can do all the broth-making and chopping, package it in beautiful mason jars, and deliver it with instructions for the basic mix-and-simmer so that they can have it hot when they really want or need it. If you’re prepping for yourself, you could flash-freeze all the mix-ins and store them in one freezer bag, with the broth in another, and do the whole thing from frozen up to three months later. Or if you’re really ambitious, you could dehydrate everything but the broth and store it in your pantry for a scoop-and-go soup mix like this one I’m obsessed with from Frontier Soups.

I think that’s all I have to say. It’s getting quite late, and my eyes are getting a little screen-sore, but I can’t remember anything else I wanted to add.

If you do end up making this soup, tag me on Notes so we can be excited about it together!

1. Please, anyone other than me cut the onions! I once had to pull over off the feeder road a full half-hour after cutting an onion because one tiny whiff left on my hands was enough to trigger such a strong tear reaction that I couldn’t see the road in front of me.

2. This is a Cabin Pressure reference, and of course I can’t find the specific episode transcript to link here. But listen to Cabin Pressure if you haven’t already.

3. Please don’t do this for pregnant or postpartum moms unless she’s specifically requested it! Protein, protein, protein!