Magical Paleo Crockpot Chicken Soup

There's little as satisfying on a cold winter night than a good, hot, hearty soup. If it's made with chicken, even better. I will say that I've made this before not even thinking about Paleo-anything, and recommend it no matter what your diet.

Ingedients:
1 yellow onion, chopped into 1/2"-1" pieces
One 16-oz package regular whole white mushrooms, washed
4 stalks celery, washed and cut into 1/2"-1" pieces
4 carrots, washed and cut into 1/2"-1" pieces
2 chicken breasts, cubed in about 1" pieces
Penzey's Forward! spice

For liquid, I used 1 1/2 quarts homemade chicken stock (this recipe, but using chicken carcass and scraps instead of beef bones). You can also use water, or canned chicken broth, but this tasted much better!

I chopped all the vegetables, tossed them into tupperware and stuck them in the fridge, because I'm leery of refrigerating my crock overnight and then pulling it out to put in the element while it's cold in the morning. I had the broth already in the fridge from Sunday's crockpotting. In the morning, my only prep was to cut up the chicken breasts, coat them in the Penzey's spice mixture, throw everything into the crockpot, and pour the broth over it all. I turned the crockpot on low at 10am, and ate at about 6pm and everything was cooked through.


The cooked soup isn't as pretty and bright as the raw ingredients, but it is delicious. It did not need any salt, and I find that the full flavor cooking the ingredients in broth delivered is far more satisfying than when I do essentially the same recipe with water instead of broth. (You can do it, it is just less rich.) In terms of servings, I'd estimate 6-8 good sized servings, depending on the size of your bowl and your appetite.

Future changes: I'd love to find a way to thicken the broth a bit to make it more stew-like; I'll have to review some paleo blogs to see how they do that without using flour or cornstarch. Because I prefer my soups more like stews, I would add more vegetables - it's a lot of broth and could use more things to chew on. And it would have been delicious had I been able to sop up the dregs with bread, but drinking the broth kid-style from the bowl was also pretty satisfying. I'd also like to find a way to incorporate sweet potatoes without the potatoes getting mushy.

Paleo Beef Broth in the Crockpot

My first attempt at "going paleo" in the kitchen was to make some beef stock. I've been reading how good homemade stock is supposed to be for those with autoimmune and leaky gut issues. I figured, I own two crockpots. How could I not just fill them full of stuff and wake up the next day to some good stock that i can keep on hand? Seems too easy to not take advantage of. So I did a quick grocery trip for some staple veggies and some beef bones. I had called some local butchers, but few sold bones - I just picked up a couple of 2lb. bags from my grocery's freezer section.

I have two crockpots, one is about 4(?) quarts, and the other is larger at about 6 quarts. For the smaller crockpot, I used (in order of adding to the pot):

- 2 large carrots, unpeeled, chopped into 1-1.5" pieces
- 1 yellow onion, quartered. (I peeled mine, some recipes say not to)
- 8 cloves garlic, unpeeled and smashed
- 3 stalks celery, washed and chopped into 1" pieces
- 1 2lb. bag of beef soup bones (grocery freezer aisle)
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- filled crock the rest of the way with tap water

For the larger crock, I did about the same, using just a bit more of each of the ingredients:

- 4 large carrots, unpeeled, chopped into 1-1.5" pieces
- 1 yellow onion, quartered. (I peeled mine, some recipes say not to)
- 12 cloves garlic, unpeeled and smashed
- 4 stalks celery, washed and chopped into 1" pieces
- two 2lb. bags of beef soup bones (grocery freezer aisle)
- 2 bay leaves
- 5 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- filled crock the rest of the way with tap water

I started at about 2:00pm; everything was in the pots and I kept them on the low heat setting until about 8:30am the next morning. I'm terrible about opening them up and peeking in on occasion, so I lost some heat that way. The broth doesn't reduce much this way since the covers stay on; next time I may try it on the stovetop to see what the reduction can add flavorwise.

This morning I placed a colander into a large pasta pot, and drained the crocks into that. I discarded the veggies and bones, divvied up the broth into various containers (including: tupperware, large pint yogurt containers, and some old chinese restaurant soup containers I had washed and kept). Later, I'll scoop off the top fat layer (the broth was definitely greasy) and then divvy up the remaining broth between the freezer and fridge. I'm planning to use it as a starter for soups and stews, but since it's winter, a cup of hot homemade broth will be nice on occasion, too.

The broth smells delicious - you'll notice I didn't use any salt; I tend not to cook with a lot since my palate is very sensitive to it. I'd rather handle it later when I'm using the broth for cooking rather than have it start out with much salt in it.

One thing I did note is that I have this automatic habit of throwing out the heels and peels of my veggies - I'm going to have to work on that and keep a scrap bag handy for the freezer so that I can make stock from scraps instead of whole fresh veggies. Same with bones - looks like going paleo may well help me discard less as well as feel better!