Shirtless Chef is making Chicken Soup that actually is good for you and your taste buds!

Local fitness enthusiast Jason Murphy remakes favorite meals of his youth into healthy dishes. See the full list of his recipes at www.mysaline.com/shirtless.

Chicken Soup that actually is good for you and your taste buds!

Chicken soup is always the go to when a person is feeling sick. Unfortunately, that usually means a can of condensed nastiness that is anything but good for you. In reality, eating a bowl of the canned stuff is just giving your immune system more to fight than the cold virus it’s already battling. Just look at the ingredients in a standard can of Cambell’s Chicken and Rice:

Ingredients
Chicken Stock, Rice, Chicken Meat, Carrots, Contains Less Than 2% Of: Salt, Chicken Fat, Celery, Monosodium Glutamate, Water, Cornstarch, Sugar, Onions, Vegetable Oil, Dried Chicken, Modified Cornstarch, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavoring, Dried Chicken Broth, Beta Carotene For Color, Soy Protein Isolate, Sodium Phosphate, Soy Lecithin. Contains: Soy May Contain Traces Of Wheat

First off, what in the heck is “dried chicken”? The usual preservatives, sugars, and chemicals make their presence known, of course, but dried chicken was a new one for me. And why “may contain traces of wheat”? So maybe some wheat just falls in some batches? What else is plopping down in the big ‘ole vat of dried chicken and Sodium Phosphate that they don’t know about? The nutrition label is also very misleading, because they only give you the numbers for 1/2 cup serving, but the servings in the can add up to 2.5. Who has ever cracked open a can of Cambell’s soup and not eaten the entire can? They know this, and they are counting on you not to notice, because the sodium for 1/2 cup serving is 790 mg, which is already a big number, but times that by 2.5 and and you have a whopping 1,975 mg, boys and girls! Having a stroke will not help that fever go down. To top it off, the chicken in these cans is always these weird, tiny little chunks that look like they shot a dead chicken thigh through a screen door with a high speed air cannon, and caught what went through on the other side. We can do much, much better. It’s funny how anytime I say something is healthy, people always sneer their nose in disgust before even trying it. Healthy does not mean bad tasting. In fact, it usually is much better, and in this case, there is no comparison.

Get yourself a whole pasture raised bird and throw that bad girl in a slow cooker for 6 – 8 hours, and you will have the most tender and tasty chicken you ever had. It will be so tender, in fact, that getting it out of the slow cooker will be the hardest part of the entire cooking process. I just touched the drumsticks and they fell off like the side molding on a “78 Ford Pinto. Using fresh veggies, unsalted chicken bone broth, and cauliflower rice will quadruple the nutrition in a can, not to mention no MSG or “natural flavorings” that can be anything under the sun. This soup is easy and quick to make, and hopefully if one day you find yourself feeling a bit under the weather, there’s someone around that will put in a little extra work to bring you the good stuff. And if they happen to make some of the low carb cornbread on the side, well then, winner winner chicken dinner indeed.

Homemade Chicken and Cauliflower Rice Soup

Ingredients:

1 32 oz carton of unsalted or low sodium chicken bone broth

1 batch organic carrots with the tops

1 package organic celery heart

1 yellow onion, diced

1 package organic baby bella mushrooms

1 whole local pasture raised chicken

2 eggs at room temp

3 cloved garlic minced

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 tbsp olive or avocado oil

2 1/2 tsp sea salt, divided

1 tsp pepper, oregano, parsley, thyme, basil

2 tbsp grass fed butter

2 bags frozen cauliflower rice

Directions:

The day before or the morning of making the soup, prepare your chicken by mixing 1 tsp of pepper, oregano, parsley, thyme, and basil with 1/2 tsp of salt in a bowl. Glove up and loosen the skin on the chicken and work the spices in everywhere you can over all the pieces of meat on the chicken, breasts, thighs, drumsticks, wings. Then rub the chicken with a drizzle of olive oil and hit it again with sprinkle of salt and pepper on the skin:

Cook for 6 hours on low, then cook for at least one hour on the high setting to make sure any mycobacterial creatures that might be lurking are done in:

Use a probe thermometer in the thickest part of the breast to ensure it has hit 170 degrees. Then you can disassemble your bird. The drumsticks should fall right off with a touch:

Shred all the meat you can off your bird and place in a bowl or dish and place in the fridge until time to make your soup. Start by chopping your carrots, onions, celery, and garlic:

Heat the olive oil in a large stock pot until it just starts to simmer. Add the carrots, celery, and onion and saute until just soft, about 6 minutes over medium heat. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper to flavor. Add the minced garlic and cook 1 more minute, stirring constantly so that the garlic doesn’t burn:

Add the carton of broth and the shredded chicken meat, stir to combine. Heat until it starts to boil, and then reduce and simmer. In a large skillet, heat two tbsp of avocado oil and then add the frozen cauliflower rice. Stir often and cook until the cauliflower is tender and all of the moisture has evaporated from the pan:

Stir the rice into the soup and continue to simmer over low heat. Add the butter to the skillet you just used for for the rice and once it melts, add the sliced mushrooms and saute until tender, then add to the soup:

Whisk the two room temp eggs in a bowl with the lemon juice.

Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, ladle the hot broth into the egg mixture slowly, drizzling at a slow pace while whisking constantly to temper the eggs. Repeat 2 to 3 times until the temperature of the eggs is raised enough to feel slightly warm to the touch. Then slowly add the egg mixture to the soup while constantly stirring: