Chicken Cabbage Soup – This delicious soup is an easy recipe made with minimal ingredients, including carrots, thyme, and cooked chicken. No tomatoes needed!
How this soup originated
This story is not particularly interesting, but I always enjoy reading how recipes begin!
One day, instead of my usual lunch salad, I was in the mood for soup.
Because I’m half Czech, I very often have cabbage in my fridge! This day was no different, and my cabbage’s destiny was to be used as soup!
I wanted to avoid using tomatoes in my soup, as in this Low Calorie Cabbage Soup already on the blog.
Sometimes, I avoid tomatoes. If I don’t, I can find myself eating them nearly every day! Which is fine, if you’re not a hyper-allergic individual, such as myself.
Easy, peasy soup-er squeasy
In addition to being sans tomato, I wanted to use as few ingredients as possible.
Initially, I limited myself to four. I was thinking…cabbage, carrot, water, thyme. This was not going on the blog at this point, mind you, so I just wanted fast, simple, healthy.
But!…after a few additions and tweaks, I came up with something rather delicious!
Natalie, the queen of ‘I don’t like soup’ even dug this one, and since cabbage is having a moment right now, I wanted to share.
To chicken or not….?
The first time I made this soup, I didn’t add the chicken and was definitely hungry again soon after.
After making it a second time, I stirred in some pre-made chicken breasts that were in desperate need of moisture, and the soup tasted phenomenal!
I would recommend the addition, if not averse in some dietary way.
Chicken Cabbage Soup
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 3/4 cup yellow onion chopped
- 3 large garlic cloves minced
- 3/4 cup carrots (about two medium carrots) chopped
- pinch red pepper flakes
- 5 cups green cabbage shredded
- 1 dried bay leaf
- 10 fresh thyme sprigs (or a big pinch of dried thyme)
- 7 cups water
- 1 tsp sea salt plus more as desired
- 1-3 cups cooked chicken as desired
Instructions
- Heat a large pot over medium heat.
- Add in onion, garlic, carrots, red pepper flakes, and a good pinch of sea salt.
- Saute 2-3 minutes.
- Add in the cabbage, water, thyme, and one teaspoon of sea salt.
- Give everything a good stir.
- Bring soup up to a boil, then lower to a simmer.
- Cook 20-25 minutes, until cabbage is tender, not mushy.
- Stir in as much or little chopped cooked chicken as you like.
- Taste for salt and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Shared with: What’s For Dinner Sunday
Lauri says
Delicious water-based cabbage recipe! I made this for my dad, who has stage three kidney disease. I left out the salt. I included a bit more thyme than called for and added a scope of white rice to thicken the broth a bit. Thanks for such an easy recipe.
Lauren says
Thanks, Lauri! I’m happy your dad enjoyed it. 🙂