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Reviving Traditional Foods

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Slow Cooker Chicken Soup

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Slow Cooker Chicken Soup is about as simple as soup can be: chicken thighs and vegetables slowly simmered with fresh thyme, bay and parsley.

Slow coooker chicken soup can soothe a weary soul.  These days mine is in desperate want of soothing.  There are months when life seems to take the lead and you’re always just one step behind – months when obligations never cease, when kids and work and charitable obligations all need your attention NOW and without compromise.  There are months when you forget yourself.   For me, I turn to this simple recipe for slow cooker chicken soup: just wholesome ingredients, a handful of steps and nourishment that can last for days.

Slow cooker chicken soup is that simple recipe, comforting and nourishment, that will keep your belly full even in the toughest time when both money and time are scarce.  When the question of how to balance time, finances and nourishment comes up, and it often does among Nourished Kitchen readers, I always answer with one single response: “Learn to love your slow cooker.”  Simple steps, coupled with good quality ingredients and a slow cooker bubbling away all day ensures that you can feed your family affordably, healthfully and without a lot of time in the kitchen.   For me, slow cooker chicken soup is the answer.

Slow Cooker Chicken Soup
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Recipe type: Soup
Cuisine: American
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 quarts soup
Slow Cooker Chicken Soup is about as simple as soup can be: chicken thighs and vegetables slowly simmered with fresh thyme, bay and parsley. Adding the vegetables half-way through cooking time ensures they're not overcooked while allowing the chicken to become meltingly tender.
Ingredients
  • 2 pounds boneless chicken thighs
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (We recommend this source)
  • 2 teaspoons unrefined sea salt
  • 2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 heaping teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
  • 2 bay leafs
  • 6 cups long-simmered chicken bone broth (find a recipe here)
  • 1 medium leek, white and light green parts only, sliced thin
  • 1 yellow onion, peeled and chopped
  • 6 carrots, peeled and sliced into ¼-inch rounds
  • 6 celery ribs, sliced ¼-inch thick
  • 1 pound Russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into ½-inch cubes
  • ¼ cup minced fresh parsley
Instructions
  1. Place the chicken in a slow cooker, drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle it with fresh thyme, salt and pepper. Drop in the bay leaves and pour in the broth. Cook on low for 1 hour.
  2. Add leeks, onion, carrots, celery and potatoes to the slow cooker and continue cooking on low for an additional hour. Break up any large pieces of chicken with a fork, stir in the parsley and serve hot.

 

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Reader Interactions

What people are saying

  1. Which slow cooker do you use? All of the ones that I’ve come across are made with teflon or other toxic ingredients. Thank you..

    • I have the same question! Leaving the skin on seems to be very greasy. Advice is much appreciated 🙂

    • Yes. Unless otherwise specified, all the recipes for chicken on Nourished Kitchen are bone-in and skin-on.

  4. What about making this in an electric pressure cooker? Would it be as nourishing and good for you?

  5. Hi – just tried this recipe – my house smells great. I am not new to cooking, but am new to using a slow cooker. So, it tastes kind of fatty. I only used a half chicken and cut the recipe in half. There was skin on the chicken and I am a fan of fat, especially chicken fat. But, it’s masking flavor in the soup. And what is the point of salting and peppering the chicken if you are just going to pour water over it? I would have liked measurements of S&P to help flavor the soup. I feel like I’m adding a lot of salt at the end. Please don’t mistake my intent, I LOVE your blog, am a fan and finally trying out some recipes. (Had a baby 6 months ago and been sort of in a fog). So, any tips to help add some flavor? Should I take the skin off after the first 12 hours? What crock-pot do you use? Curious. Thanks for all your awesome work! I look forward to refining this for my family and trying out more recipes.

  6. How to you avoid eating the spine bones and such? I’ve always cooked my whole chicken then strained out the juice and handpicked through the carcass and meat mess to separate all the edible meat. Any wiser tips?

  7. Hi Jenny!
    I’m making this soup for,the first time and my slow cooker switched to warm for about an hour early this morning. I hadn’t added the veggies yet. Does that affect the soup? I’m not sure if the chicken has to stay at a certain temperature.
    Thanks!
    Jen

  8. I love chicken soup of any kind, but just not in the crockpot. Roasting the chicken first adds so much more flavor and removes a lot of the fat from the soup…unless that’s what you’re going for! and I do pick the chicken apart and remove most of the bones before serving. The other alternative is to strain the whole thing and just keep the broth.

  9. Hi Jenny!
    This looks wonderful! I’ve read mixed things on cooking whole chicken in the slow cooker, some slow cookers come with warnings not to do so because the meat will take too long to cook through and therefore be in the “danger zone” for too long. Do you have thoughts about that?
    Thanks!
    Kate

  10. Re the traditionalism of pressure cookers, actually, yhe pressure cooker was developed in the 1600s and came into mass production by the early victorian period- not sure how that makes it more traditional than a slow cooker! The oldest ones , with weights and valves work on the same principle as the newest electric ones

  11. Gemma, I think the distinction Jenny draws between slow cookers and pressure cookers is that a slow cooker mimics the way things have been cooked since the dawn of time. Low and slow for hours. Traditional people may have used big pots over fires or buried their food in the ground, but the cooking principle is the same.
    Pressure cookers may have been developed in the 1600’s, but it is cooking at a high temperature under pressure – resulting in food cooked much faster. I think according to Jenny’s principles (and mine) that doesn’t fall under a traditional method of cooking – it’s one that has developed in a more modern era of human kind. For thousands of years before that, most cooking was done slowly.

  12. Hi Jenny

    Would you take bones after you take meat off and put them back into the pot to make bone broth?

  13. Most slow cookers have been found to have toxic linings. Please let me know which cooker you recommend that does not have toxic linings.

    • Hi Sumera, that is simply not true. All slowcookers old in the US are manufactured to high standards and do not have toxic linings. Do not use old, cracked liners.

  14. What happened to the old recipe? Why the change? It was SOOO good! I had to hunt through the wayback machine to find the whole chicken version of this soup.

  15. I just made this soup. Tastes good but how is 2 hours on low in a slow cooker long enough??
    I’ve had it on for about 5 hours on high and it’s only just ready to be eaten!!