Chicken Cabbage Soup - This delicious soup is an easy recipe made with minimal ingredients, including carrots, thyme, and cooked chicken. No tomatoes needed!
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.
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, so I wanted to share.
Recipe notes
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 cooked chicken breasts that were in desperate need of moisture, and the soup tasted phenomenal!
Chicken Cabbage Soup
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- ¾ cup yellow onion chopped
- 3 large garlic cloves minced
- ¾ 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 teaspoon 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
If you have a chance to try this recipe, please leave a star rating and a comment below letting me know how you liked it!
Michael
This is a super easy recipe to make with awesome results. My only change was leaving out the garlic (my wife is not a fan). I ended up with a large pot of soup which I served with homemade socca. This recipe goes into my keeper file.
Lauren
Thanks, Michael. Love the idea of serving it with socca, yum! 🙂
Lauri
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
Thanks, Lauri! I'm happy your dad enjoyed it. 🙂