Chicken Wing Soup

If there’s anything I’ve learned from this whole “blog what we cook” project, its that I suck at taking pictures of food. 🙂

If you know much about Buffalo, I’d be willing to make a bet that it has something to do with either snow or chicken wings. While the city has gotten an unfairly bad rap about snow, everything they say about the wings is correct. 😉

Almost every visitor to the Queen City has been, at some point or another, taken to one of the famous wing hot spots in town. Several local restaurant go a step further and serve CHICKEN WING SOUP!!! Since winter set in, I’ve had a hankering for some of it but as anyone with a 1 year old knows, going out to eat can sometimes be an extraordinarily frustrating experience. So, rather than go out on a cold, winter night, we made our own! 🙂

After some quick Google searches, I found a few contenders. I don’t actually know what the source is to the recipe…but, I definitely started with a Google search. 😉

This recipe was VERY good. I’d definitely make it again…it hit the spot and was a great dinner after a long day at work. My only “issue” with the recipe is that it calls for an arty-clogging amount of cheese. As I said, it was good but I’d like to shop around a little for a recipe that isn’t so cheesy. Who knows, maybe we’ll find an even BETTER recipe by the time we’re done! (In all fairness, chicken wings and chicken wing soup aren’t recipes particularly known to be “healthy”…so finding a lighter version of this soup may be impossible.)

Another item to note: We did our special trick for preparing chicken for recipes. When we plan to cook several recipes that call for cooked chicken as one of the ingredients, we crockpot a motherload (an exact measurement) of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a combo of chicken broth and water for 8 hours on low while we’re at work all day. When you get home, you have a crockpot full of chicken ready to be used in nearly any recipe you want to make! We’ll use the chicken in probably 3-4 recipes. The extras store well in the frig in some of the juice from the crockpot.

Chicken Wing Soup

INGREDIENTS:
1 med sized white onion, about 1.5 cups, chopped finely
1 stick of butter
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 Tbs chopped garlic
16oz shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 cup bleu cheese dressing
1 cup chopped celery
2/3 cup shredded carrot (we didn’t add this because we didn’t have any)
2 cans chicken broth (29ozs)
1 can cream of chicken soup (10oz)
1 can cream of celery soup (10oz)
3 cups chicken, chopped
chili powder, salt, pepper
1/2 cup hot sauce (Frank’s is the only way to go!)

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. In a big sauce pot, melt a stick of butter with 1/4 cup white vinegar and saute the onion and garlic for about 10 minutes.

2. Add 3 cups of finely chopped chicken to the mixture and sprinkle in some salt, black pepper, a tsp of chili powder and 1/2 cup of hot sauce. You can use raw or cooked chicken. Raw chicken makes it more flavorful. You just need to make sure its finely chopped or even run it through a food processor.

3. Cover with a lid and let cook for approximately 20 minutes.

4. Next, add 2 cans (29oz total) of chicken broth, 1 can of both cream of chicken and cream of celery soup, a cup of celery and approximately 2/3 cup of finely shredded carrot and the cup of bleu cheese dressing. Less simmer, covered at low heat for 45 minutes (or until celery and carrots are soft), stirring frequently.

5. Finally, add the 16oz of shredded Monterey Jack gradually, stirring the whole time. Simmer for another 3-5 minutes and serve.

We ate this all alone but it would be great served with some garlic bread or toasted bread.