Chicken and Sausage Soup

I enjoy the fall time of year. The cool days, wearing fluffy sweaters, sitting by the crackling fire, and sipping hot apple cider are just some of the reasons I love this time of year. But I do think my favorite thing to do during this time of year is to make a big pot of soup. I love soup and honestly I eat it year round, but something about it during fall just makes it even better. Maybe because my family won’t complain if I serve them a hot bowl of soup on a cool fall day.

Over the years, I have acquired several soup recipes, but when I first started making soup, I didn’t follow a recipe per say but more of a way my mom taught me. Which is mostly how I cook because that is how my momma and granny both cooked. Of course when my daughter, mom, and I compiled a family cookbook several years ago, I quickly learned the importance of writing recipes for the favorite dishes I made for family.

Back to the Soups

Over the years, I have made adjustments to both the potato soup and chicken soup I make. This recipe is a combination of my classic chicken soup and my aunts turkey gumbo recipe.

Since my soup recipes make at least a gallon, one hack I use when a recipe calls for noodles/rice is to add the noodles/rice to each serving rather than in the soup pot, otherwise I end up with very plump, mushy noodles and no broth.

Let me know what you think of the recipe.

Chicken Soup with Sausage

• Time: prep - 30 minutes, cook - 2 hours
• Difficulty: medium
• Print

Ingredients

• 3 Chicken thighs
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 3 carrots sliced
• 1 1/2 cups frozen green beans
• 6-8 cups of water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 Tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 4 oz cooked sausage
• prepared noodles or rice

Directions

1. Add chicken thighs, carrots, onions, garlic, bay leaf, green beans and salt into stock pot with 6 cups of water.
2. Cover and bring pot to a rolling boil. Lower heat to med/low. Simmer covered for 1 hour, add more water as level decreases.
3. Simmer 30 more minutes while preparing sausage.
4. Crumble sausage, sprinkle with 1/2 -1 tsp of red pepper flakes, and cook until done. Set aside.
5. Using tongs, remove chicken, bones, and skin from broth.
6. Let chicken cool slightly and prepare roux.
7. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add flour and pepper and mix thoroughly. Cook for 1-2 minutes. Stir in 1 cup chicken broth from stockpot until smooth, cook until slightly thickened.
8. Add roux to the stockpot, stir until combined.
9. Add chicken and sausage and bring to boil.
10. Cover and Simmer for 15-20.
11. Serve over noodles or rice and fresh parsley.

Hack This Recipe

1. Use hot sausage in place of sausage and red pepper flakes.
2. Use 1 cup of precut carrots instead of whole carrots
2. To make the recipe quick and easy, use prepared chicken broth and 2 cups of rotisserie chicken, 14.5 oz can green beans and 1/2 cup matchstick carrots instead of whole carrots.

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