Among other things, I bought a 10-lb bag of chicken leg quarters at Walmart to use in March. My primary thought was to use these for homemade chicken soup. A 10-lb bag contains between 8 and 9 chicken leg quarters, in my experience.
I use 1 leg quarter per large pot of soup (about 1.25 gallons once everything is added). I prefer leg quarters for chicken soup because they are the least expensive chicken parts I can buy and dark meat poultry has more zinc than light meat. Zinc is often recommended for supporting the immune system. The extra fat in dark meat is a bonus, as I can use it to saute the vegetables as I put the soup together.
How I make chicken soup
For years, I hated making soup using bone-in meat. I disliked handling the slimy-feeling, warm poultry part just out of the hot broth, as I pulled meat off of the bones. Then I discovered that I could make chicken soup over 2 days and deal with the chicken meat, chilled, on day 2.
So, this is how I make it. I heat a large stockpot over Medium. I sprinkle a bit of salt in the bottom of the pot (my mom always did this to prevent fatty meat, like burger patties or skin-on chicken parts from sticking to the pan). Then, I place the chicken leg quarter skin side down in the pot and brown on both sides. Once both sides are just barely golden, I cover with about a gallon of water, bring to a boil, cover, and allow to simmer for about 3 hours.
After the stock has cooled for about 15 minutes, I remove the chicken from the stock, place in a glass dish, cover and refrigerate. Next, I pour the warm stock into a large container for the fridge and chill it over night, too.
The next day, I skim the fat off of the stock and use it to saute 2 diced onions, 3 to 5 diced large carrots, 2 or 3 chopped sticks of celery with leaves, and 1 clove of garlic, minced. If there wasn't much chicken fat, I add a little oil as well. While they saute, I pulled the chilled chicken meat off of the bones and chop. I add the chicken to the vegetables and pour all of the stock over it all.
At this point, I decide if we want traditional chicken noodle soup, or a chicken, barley, and lentil soup, or an Italian minestrone type of soup. If chicken noodle, I add some crushed sage to the cooking soup, a bit of pepper, and salt to taste. In the last 6 or 7 minutes, I add broken spaghetti noodles to the soup.
If I'm making the barley and lentil version, I add a half cup each of dry barley and lentils to the soup just after adding the stock. I season it similarly to chicken noodle soup. The lentils add extra protein and the barley adds some carbs.
If I decide we want a minestrone-type soup, I substitute some crushed oregano for the sage, add some extra garlic, and some dry lentils. In the last 10 minutes of cooking, I add a cup of any shape pasta plus some diced canned tomatoes and their liquid.
The chicken soups have been pretty popular with my family these last 10 days. I plan on making a large pot at least once per week. I freeze a quart or two of each batch, so we can homemade soup most days of the week.
Making the soup over 2 days has made the job seem less of a chore for me. I think we all have to find ways to make our work a little easier. I just thought I'd share this about the chicken soup in case it helps anyone else.
