Week #6 (Guest Blogger!) - Chicken Vegetable Quinoa Soup

My friend Erica is a great cook, and she came to visit this week. I asked her to be my first guest blogger!
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I think I love soup almost as much as Michaela.  Actually, my love is more for the cooking of the soup than the eating of it.  I've been cooking soup in Michaela's kitchen for years, so when I came in to town for a visit, it was necessary that I partake in her "52 Soups" adventure.

Unlike Michaela, I don't usually follow a recipe.  I'm a "throw stuff in to a pot and see what it tastes like" kind of cook.  So here's what I ended up with:

Chicken Vegetable Quinoa soup

Ingredients:
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 medium white onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
3 ribs celery, diced
3/4 cup baby carrots (or 1 large/2 small regular carrots), diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
2 cans diced fire-roasted tomatoes
2 cans black beans, drained and lightly rinsed
1 1/2 cups shredded chicken breasts
3 cups chicken broth
1-2 cups water
1 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 cup quinoa
salt and pepper to taste
Sour cream

Directions:
Over medium heat, heat butter and oil in soup pot
Add onion, pepper, celery, and carrot
Season with a pinch of salt a a few good grinds of pepper
Saute until vegetables soften

Add garlic and cook until you can smell it (30-45 seconds)
Add chicken, tomatoes, beans, broth, chili powder, and salt/pepper to taste
Add quinoa and 1 cup of water
Bring pot to a boil over medium heat

Cover and let boil for 12 minutes
If soup seems thick, add additional water
Remove from heat and let set for 10-15 minutes until quinoa is tender but not mushy
Serve with sour cream (for added creaminess and/or heat reduction if you used too much chili powder)

Notes:
- A request to make the soup "hearty" made me add chicken to my recipe.  The soup could easily be made vegetarian, or vegan, by excluding the chicken breasts and substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth (exclude butter for vegan version)
- Play around with vegetables - many veggies can be substituted or added to this recipe, so use what you like or what you have on hand
- Lentils would be a good substitution for Quinoa in this - just reduce the water and add about 5-10 minutes to your cooking time

As one of my sporadic soup creations, I was greatly impressed with this.  The chipotle chili powder added a smokey spice which was greatly paired with the creamy sour cream.  I might play around with substituting different grains, though.  I love quinoa, but it was almost hidden by the chunky vegetables, so something more "present" like lentils or barley might work better.

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Thanks, Erica! This soup was great. We served it with Pampered Chef beer bread. It was a great meal.

Rating 4.5/5