Chicken Carcass Soup is a great way to stretch your leftovers from a roast chicken. This thrifty recipe uses the carcass and any leftover meat to create an incredibly flavorful chicken soup.
Place your carcass (more than one if you like!) in a large pot or in your slow cooker. Add celery, carrots, onion, bay leaves, peppercorns and apple cider vinegar. Top with water, adding enough so that it almost covers your ingredients.
Simmer over low heat on the stove for up to 2 hours or in the slow cooker on a low setting overnight. I prefer to use the slow cooker as it is more energy efficient.
Strain the contents of your pot or crockpot using a large colander. Reserve the stock and carrots. Pick any meat off the carcass as soon as it is cool enough to handle. Chop the carrots to use in the soup.
MAKE THE CHICKEN SOUP
Sweat chopped onion, celery, carrots and potato in a large pot over low heat in a little olive oil.
Add the chicken broth (you can double strain it if you like), all the meat you picked from the carcass, butternut squash and chickpeas. If there’s not much meat you can add a few raw chicken tenders in now and shred them before adding the pasta.
Add lemon juice, soy sauce and a couple dashes of Tabasco, bring to a rolling simmer then lower the heat and simmer the soup for 20 minutes.
Add pasta and simmer for a further 10 minutes or until it is cooked through. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper, to taste. Stir in the chopped parsley and serve.