Cooking Light Immunity Soup

Hi Everyone! I am so glad the week is half way over, not that i am counting or anything. Are you all ready for a 100% Simply Filling or low smartpoint chicken, kale and chickpea soup?  One of my all time favorite websites and magazines is Cooking Light.  Every month I cannot wait for the latest magazine to arrive so I scroll through each page and flag the corners of recipes I want to make.  I then go through a second time and tear out the pages of  the recipes I really AM going to make.  Yep, I still totally love printed magazines – the smell, the feel and well just so I can build my to make recipe folder.

When I saw this recipe for Immunity Soup, I knew I had to make it.  Partly because The Husband is always telling me that Dr. Oz says the best foods to eat are GOMBS (Greens, Onions, Mushrooms, Beans and Seeds) and the other part was the picture.

This soup is seriously fantastic all!  It has so much flavor from the garlic, herbs, crunchy veggies and rich chicken broth.  The best part is it all comes together in less than an hour even though it tastes like you spent all day making the stock from scratch.

Pick your biggest soup pan as you are going to be adding 8 cups of broth, 2 lbs of chicken and probably like 6+ cups of veggies.

Swirl 2 Tbsp Olive oil in the bottom of the pan. (8 sp).  Heat over medium heat and add all the veggies you chopped up.  I used onion plus 1 leek as I love how leeks add a richness to soups.  Celery and carrot also hopped in the pan.  cook for 5 minutes.

Add 1 package of Trader Joe’s cremini mushrooms plus 10 garlic cloves that were minced.  It sounds like a lot of garlic but it’s not when you see how much soup this makes.  Cook for another 3 minutes.

Add 1 can chickpeas (10 sp) that are drained and rinsed, 4 sprigs thyme, 2-3 bay leaves and I added 1 Tbsp rosemary (mainly because I had it on hand and I tend to throw any herbs on hand in soup).

Pour in 8 cups of UNSALTED chicken broth and bring to a simmer, about 4-5 minutes.

Chicken soup isn’t complete for me without the zest and juice of a lemon.  It also is bonus immunity booster.

Once the pot of goodness is simmering, add your 2 lbs chicken breast (14 sp), sea salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes.  Cover and simmer for 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.  Remove the chicken, thyme stems and bay leaves.  Shred the chicken.

Another thing I added to the recipe was 2/3 cup of these English Peas.  I had actually bought these as I thought they would be a great snack….until I realized you only get 2/3 a cup for 3 sp.  So they are debuting in my soup and probably 1-2 tablespoons at a time on my salads.

Add your kale and peas.

Plus shredded chicken. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until the kale is softened.

Tadah!  This soup totally hit the spot and had so many delicious things to eat you didn’t miss the noodles.    It’s 6 smartpoints if you calculate based on all nutrition facts and if you believe this is only 8 servings at 1 1/2 cups each.  If you take out the veggies, it’s 4 smartpoints per serving based on 8 servings.  The total recipe coming in at 31 smartpoints so you can use that the gauge how many servings you get out of your soup.

You can find the complete recipe by clicking here.  My modifications included adding a leek for 1/2 cup of the onion, rosemary, lemon zest plus juice, and English peas.

Night All!