Lemon Kale Chicken Soup

About

On a cold day, there’s nothing like a bowl of chicken soup. This lemon chicken soup is teeming with veggies, lemon and is made creamy and filling thanks to some butter. In this recipe, you make your own broth from boiling a chicken, but in a pinch you can use a prepared broth and add in shredded chicken. For additional flavor, add a stalk of celery, carrot, and a few slices of onion to the pot while the chicken is cooking to impart more flavor on the broth.

Ingredients

2 pound chicken, whole, skin removed before eating
8 cup water
½ teaspoon salt
1 large – 2 3/8" diameter lemon
2 cup, diced celery
2 cup, chopped raw kale
1 cup riced cauliflower by trader joe's
2 clove garlic
¼ teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoon butter, salted

Instructions

Place the chicken, water and salt in a pot or dutch oven of choice.
Bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. You can skim off any foam that comes to the surface. If you’d like, you can also add a cut stalk of celery, carrot chopped in half and a piece of an onion, sliced. They will be removed once the chicken is cooked so will not change nutrition facts.
Once the chicken is simmering, cover the pot and cook for 1.5-2 hours, or until the chicken starts to fall apart as you pick it out of the water with tongs. Remove the chicken from the pot and pick the meat off of the chicken bones. Set aside. If you added aromatics like carrot, celery and onion, you can discard them now.
Chop the celery and thinly slice the kale. Mince the garlic and add it to the pot with the broth. Increase the heat in the pot to medium. Once it returns to a simmer, add the celery.
Once the celery is almost softened, add the kale and cauliflower rice to the pot. Cook for an additional 3-4 minutes, or until the kale is tender.
Strain out the vegetables and set aside. If there’s a little cauliflower left in the pot that’s okay. Add the juice from half of a lemon and butter to the broth and blend using an immersion blender.
Add back the vegetables and shredded chicken. Season with the pepper and additional salt as needed.
Allow to simmer for an additional 3-5 minutes, then serve the soup. Slice the other half of the lemon and add the slices to the individual bowls.