Chicken Soup - Carrabba's Style

This soup is sort of like Mama Mandola's Spicy Chicken Soup at Carrabba's. Jon found a clone recipe online and based his soup off of it, making a few changes. The soup called to boil a 5-pound chicken to make your own broth. While we do make our own broth quite often, we like using a chicken that was roasted for dinner the night before. The first time we made this soup, we didn't have a roasted chicken, so we improvised with chicken broth, water, and a couple of big split chicken breasts. I'm going to share the recipe how we made it, but you could certainly boil your own roasted chicken for your own broth.  We're boiling a chicken tonight to make this soup again tomorrow, I'll let you know if it makes a big difference making your own broth. 

Also, the soup at Carrabba's is SUPER spicy by using a whole lot of black pepper. I'm not into that much pepper and spice, so Jon just added his own pepper to his individual bowl. If you want it spicy, add at least twice as much pepper as you would think, and keep a box of tissues close by!

 

 

6 cups of chicken broth

about 2 cups water

2 large bone-in split-chicken breasts

5 celery ribs

4 medium carrots, peeled

1 large yellow onion

2 medium potatoes, peeled

1 14 oz can Italian plum tomatoes, with juice

2 garlic cloves, pressed/minced

1/2 cup fresh Italian parsley

S&P

Small, stubby pasta (we used Ditalini)

Boil the chicken in the broth until it's falling off the bone, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. 

Meanwhile, dice celery, carrots, onion and potatoes into 1/4-inch pieces. Chop tomatoes, reserving all juices.

When the chicken is done, remove from the broth (and strain if necessary.) Add water to the broth; the amount of water will depend on how much water boiled off and the flavor. You can always add more, as needed while cooking too.

 

Add the vegetables, potatoes, tomatoes and the juices, garlic, parsley, and S&P to the broth. Bring to a boil then turn down to low and simmer until all the veggies are cooked through and soft, about an hour. 

While simmering the veggies, remove the chicken meat from the bones, discard the bones and shred the meat. Also, cook the pasta, drain, and toss with some olive oil to avoid sticking. 

Once the veggies are soft, mash them in the pot with the back of a spoon (we just used a potato masher.) Add the chicken and check for seasoning.

We kept the pasta separate so it doesn't absorb all of the broth and get water-logged. Just stir some pasta into your soup and add pepper to taste.