Curried Cream of Chicken Soup

My mom loves to cook. This is a fairly recent hobby of hers (read: she definitely did not love to cook when I was young). She clips recipes out of magazines, follows a food blog her college roommate writes (it’s pretty awesome by the way if you want to check it out: Taste With The Eyes), and gets new recipes from friends and family all the time. Besides new recipes she has a bunch of tried and true favorites that she makes all the time. Curried Cream of Chicken Soup is one of those favorites.

Curried cream of chicken soup

Mom has a cooking style that I really envy; not only does she love to cook—if she ends up cooking at night after a long day of work it’s fun for her—but she also has the time, energy, and storage room to cook a ton of food at once. So she spends her weekends cooking tons of food and then is able to just reheat stuff and whip up a quick vegetable or two to go along with it and voila, dinner! Soups lend themselves especially well to this style of cooking because if you’re going to make a soup you might as well make a huge batch, and soups tend to freeze and reheat well

Curried Cream of Chicken Soup

This recipe is adapted from the Silver Palate Cookbook.

By the way, remember in the post about 3 Rules For Keeping Your Wooden Kitchenware Gorgeous AND Functional how I mentioned that I had totally stained a spoon yellow from a curried soup recipe? Well, this is that recipe, and it’s totally worth staining a spoon!

Ingredients:

  • 6 T butter
  • 2 C yellow onions, chopped (it doesn’t matter too much how finely or coarsely chopped the onions and carrots are, they all get food-processed later)
  • 2 carrots, sliced in rounds
  • 2 T curry powder
  • 7-9 C chicken stock (we always end up using the full 9 C)
  • 1 chicken, cut-up (JonMarke and I have found that a couple of breasts, or leq quarters, or whatever we have lying around is fine. It’s delicious and full of meat with a whole chicken, but you don’t need it if just a few pieces are easier to come by.)
  • ½ C rice, (just regular rice here, not instant rice)
  • 1 C Half and Half
  • 10 oz frozen peas, defrosted

Directions:
Melt the butter in a large pot (LARGE! Everything will end up in here by the end).

Add onions, carrots and curry powder and mix it all up. Cook, covered, over low heat until vegetables are soft. If you don’t want to wait forever for all those veggies to get soft in just 6 T of butter you can add a little bit of broth; the extra liquid will make this part go faster. I don’t notice a difference in the finished soup, but logically, veggies cooked in broth would taste different than veggies cooked in just butter… This time Mom and I added just under a cup of broth, it just covered the onions.

While the veggies were cooking we took out the chicken, opened up the package, and got it all rinsed off. Once the veggies are soft (about 20-30 min for us, with the broth) add 5 C of broth, all of the chicken (including any giblets or other bits), and the rice. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and cover. Simmer (leaving the lid on) until the chicken is cooked; it usually takes about 25 minutes.

Cool the chicken in the stock mixture. Meaning, just turn it off and leave it there 🙂 It’s done cooling when the chicken is cool enough for you to handle without burning yourself. It might take a few hours, depending on how cold it is in your kitchen.

Remove the chicken from the stock mixture, leaving all of the other stuff in the pot. Remove the skin and bones from the chicken, then chop the meat into bite-sized pieces and set it aside. At this point we got the peas out of the freezer so they started to defrost.

Strain the vegetables from the stock saving the stock. We got out another large pan, sat a strainer on top of it, and just poured the whole thing in.

Put the vegetable mixture into a food processor and puree it until smooth. If it’s too thick to blend properly, add a bit of the stock you strained out.

Return the veggie puree to the pot with the stock mixture in it. Add the Half and Half and about two more cups of the chicken stock. Stir until blended. At this point you can add more broth as needed; this is where we usually end up adding the last two cups of broth, but you can see what you think once you get here.

Then add the chicken pieces back in, add the peas, and simmer for 15 minutes. That’s it!

You will have a ton of leftovers if you make this recipe with these proportions, but don’t worry, this soup freezes and reheats extremely well.

Do you have a favorite soup recipe that you make tons of so you can freeze the leftovers? I love that about soups, it’s easy to make enough for a couple of dinners all at once.

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:8]

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Jessi Wohlwend

I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience. I love sharing simple craft ideas, step by step DIY project tutorials, cleaning hacks, and other tips and tricks all with one goal in mind: giving you the tools you need to “do it yourself”, complete fun projects, and make awesome things!

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Reader Interactions

  1. Jessi says

    12 years ago

    We usually just freeze the whole thing once it's all completely made (usually we have two bowls for dinner and freeze the rest). I haven't heard the part about not freezing it with the cream for this specific recipe (though I guess I get the idea, you don't want it to curdle or separate or anything).

    But we freeze it, half and half and all it has never been a problem! I mean, maybe don't try to make it last for a month in the freezer…but a week or two, sure! 🙂

  2. audrey says

    12 years ago

    Lovely soup! Lovely blog about it…. 🙂 YUM. Can't wait 'til dinner tonight!

  3. Katie says

    12 years ago

    I looooove curry anything; I'll have to try this!

    Do you freeze it with the half and half in? A lot of recipes tell you not to add cream/half-and-half if you plan to freeze a soup, and to add it when you reheat. But if you can do it all at once that's easier than hoping you have cream on hand when you defrost the soup…

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