- Hey, I'm John Kanell and today on Preppy Kitchen
we're making a hearty, delicious chicken pot pie soup,
so let's get started.
(happy music)
First off, grab a big pot or dutch oven
and we're gonna add a third of a cup or five tablespoons
of butter right on the inside over medium high heat.
While the butter melts, we have a bit of prep work to do,
so grab an onion and we're gonna give it a nice dice.
Chicken pot pie is one of my favorite things,
so who could say no to chicken pot pie soup?
I'll be enjoying this soup tonight for dinner
with some homemade breadsticks.
Mm, that butter's halfway melted, so let's keep chopping.
Three medium carrots peeled, and I'm gonna give them
a nice dice.
I'm aiming for about half an inch for all my pieces.
The goal is to cut everything before the onion
gets to your eyes. (laughs)
The last thing to chop is the celery.
Just give it a nice chop.
Little half-inch pieces or less.
(laughing)
Ooh.
(happy jazzy music)
The last thing to chop is the celery.
Just cut each stalk down the middle
and maybe quarter-inch thick slices.
Nice and easy.
Look at that.
One, two, three.
Chopped up the veggies, and look at that,
the butter just melted.
I love that planning.
Add the onion and carrot as well as the celery.
Grab a wooden spoon and a copy of my book
for so many delicious recipes. (chuckles)
We're gonna stir this up for about seven minutes,
or until things are getting nice and tender.
It really depends on your cooktop though.
That cooktop halves the times for everything.
This one is like a more standard flame.
It's like dragon's mouth, normal flame.
While the veggies cook, we have four or five
cloves of garlic to smash and mince.
Just make sure you're stirring occasionally.
By the way, if you're not a chopping fan, I understand.
You could just buy a big canister of mirepoix
from the grocery store.
It's pre-chopped onions, celery, and carrots,
so it's the exact same thing, and they sell it
because it's really the basis for almost every
delicious soup, or so many, at least.
I, however, love chopping, so I don't mind.
These guys are getting closer.
I have just a bit of prep left.
One pound of potatoes.
Today I'm using Yukon Gold.
So Yukon Gold potatoes tend to be nice and creamy
after you cook them.
If you use russet potatoes, they kind of become
a bit powdery, so this is my favorite.
You wanna chop these into little half-inch cubes
so they cook nice and evenly.
One of my pet peeves is potatoes
that are just almost cooked, but you have that little bit
of just uncooked potato right in the center,
so we don't wanna have that in our soup.
Nice and small pieces, just not so small
that they dissolve (laughs) in the soup.
I'm cutting my potato into little slices
after I halve them, and then you just change direction
and you have pretty good sized cubes.
In French potato is (speaking foreign language).
That poor little Duolingo bird (laughs)
has been missing me lately.
Anyways, in French potato is (speaking foreign language),
apple of the earth, 'cause apple
is (speaking foreign language), just FYI.
Okay, these guys look pretty nice and tender.
We can give the carrot a test if you're curious.
Mm, those carrots are nice and tender-firm,
so it's time to add in the garlic.
Here we go.
You're gonna cook this, so make sure you're stirring it,
but at the same time, we need a wonderful thickening agent
in the form of all-purpose flour.
Grab a third of a cup of flour,
and here what we're doing is making a roux, basically.
Everything is coated in butter,
so we're just gonna mix that butter
with the flour and cook it for about a minute,
making sure to coat all of the vegetables.
Actually, we're gonna cook this for two minutes,
because there's a lot of things in here
and I wanna make sure all of the flour
gets cooked and isn't raw.
Butter and flour are the secrets to almost any silky sauce.
They really do so much.
After about two minutes of constant stirring,
we're gonna add in six cups of chicken stock.
So the secret here is just to add it in slowly.
Don't just dump it all in at the same time.
So pour and stir.
There we go.
Everything's getting hydrated now.
That flour will have a chance to thicken everything up.
That's four cups.
Time for the final two cups.
Mm-kay, that's nice.
This soup doesn't look very substantial,
even with the flour magic, so we're gonna
add the potatoes in, but I also want
two teaspoons of fresh thyme
Hmm, sometimes for soups I'll make a little thyme bouquet,
so I'll just tie some sprigs up really nicely
with twine, dump that in.
The leaves fall out and you just fish out the stalks,
but it's not always foolproof.
Sometimes it just falls apart.
So today I'm gonna strip leaves off of the stalks
and just add those in.
You could use dried thyme
if you don't have any fresh thyme handy.
Stir the thyme in.
I'm gonna bring this mixture to a boil
and then we'll reduce to medium.
In the meantime, there is a final missing ingredient.
Do you know what it is?
(happy jazzy music)
(bright dinging)
Well, there's a couple, but the main one is chicken,
so you wanna grab a chicken, and you notice,
I didn't start this recipe off
with roasting a chicken from scratch.
I feel like that's kind of a little bit extra.
If you want the best roasted chicken recipe,
tap up there, because I have my roast chicken
and it's one of my Sunday favorites.
Today I used a shortcut and just grabbed
a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.
If you wanted all white meat or all dark meat,
just buy the chicken pieces skin on,
bone on and roast them until they're nice and cooked,
then you'll take 'em apart.
My soup's come to a boil so I'm gonna
reduce the heat to medium.
I'm also gonna add in two teaspoons of kosher salt,
one and two, and one teaspoon of cracked black pepper.
You can give this soup taste later on,
but this is gonna give it a head start.
You wanna add the seasonings in a bit early
so the flavors have some time to really meld together.
You'll wanna stir this somewhat frequently
so it cooks nice and evenly.
In the meantime, let's grab our chicken and shred it up.
If you're planning your meals out for the week, by the way,
and you know on Sunday I wanna have roasted chicken,
but on Monday we want to have a nice chicken pop pie soup,
just roast two chickens.
It's like, you're not gonna increase very much work.
You're already roasting the chicken,
you're just adding a little bit more compound butter to it,
and you have a nice fresh roast chicken to use
for anything else.
The same goes if you wanna make a beautiful salad
with some shredded chicken in it or enchiladas
or anything else.
There's so many different uses.
Always see how you can double recipes
so that your work isn't doubled.
You're saving time by planning things out.
If my mom's ever making something that's at all
time-intense or complicated, she'll often
just do two of them.
So if she's making spanakopita,
which is a delicious Greek spinach pie,
she'll just make two of them and freeze one for later.
Last thing you're gonna do is just give this
a really rough chop.
When you shred chicken, you get long pieces,
and you want everything to fit on a spoon.
It's been almost 15 minutes.
I'm gonna grab a little piece of potato
and just give it a taste.
Let it cool down for a second, 'cause it's very hot.
Mm, it's so close.
Let's give it two minutes.
This soup is great.
I'm gonna add the chicken in right now.
Ooh, carefully.
Yay! (chuckles)
Stir that in.
I also have a cup of frozen peas, a cup of frozen corn.
(happy jazzy music)
If you wanna go heavier on the peas, I totally understand.
I'm gonna stir that in.
Ooh, look how this is like a stew, basically.
It's so thick and rich, and this soup
would be even more rich with half a cup of cream
and half a cup of milk.
Stir this one more time.
We're gonna bring this back to a boil
over medium heat and then decrease.
As soon as you add this dairy in, you run a risk.
The reward is that, oh my gosh, it's silky and amazing.
Everyone's happy and they love you.
The risk is that you overcook this
you bring it to a hard boil and it breaks so you have
little grains instead of a silky, velvety texture.
Don't do that.
Keep an eye on this, stir frequently.
As soon as your soup starts coming to a boil,
reduce to medium low and let it simmer away
for five to 10 minutes, just for that final melding
of flavors and warming up.
Serve garnished with some chopped parsley
and you're ready to enjoy.
(chill music)
I'm gonna eat so much of this soup.
You have no idea.
It is beyond delicious.
It's silky, it's substantial, it's comforting,
it's perfectly seasoned, and I dunno what else to say.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe
and if you like this video, check out my soup playlist.