Chicken Rice Soup

Prep Time: 15 mins  | Cook Time:  1 ½ hours | Course: Dinner | Servings: 5

I like to make soup and bread on rainy days! Chicken soup, the ultimate comfort food, here I’ve added rice and celery. You can spice it up a bit with red pepper flakes or harissa paste. I baked a sun dried tomato and green olive fougasse to soak up the soup broth with. Soup adapted from Smitten Kitchen.

https://denosdiner.com/baked-goods/o4yaadsue0tqb3cwc11s5b83cqibe9

5 bone in chicken thighs

1 Tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp oregano

1 quart chicken broth

¾ cup rice, I used short grain

3 cups water

3 cups celery

1 lemon zested and juiced

3 Tbsp parsley, chopped

2 green onions, sliced

Red pepper flakes or harissa, optional

Preheat oven to 300*. Rinse and dry chicken in between paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in a dutch oven over medium high heat and add chicken skin side down. Brown both sides about 5 minutes each. Place chicken on a platter to cool a bit and remove skin. Remove most of the fat from the pot keeping about 1 Tbsp. Cook onion with a bit of salt and pepper in the fat scraping up any flavorful browned bits, add in garlic, oregano, rice, water, celery and chicken broth. Nestle the chicken back in and place dutch oven in the oven until the chicken is tender, about an hour.

Remove the pot from the oven and pull chicken out to cool. Shred the meat off the bone and return the meat to the pot. Add the lemon zest and juice and cook over the stovetop on medium heat until the rice has finished cooking; about 15 minutes. Just before serving top with a garnish of parsley, green onions and red pepper flakes or harissa.