BEST SPICES AND HERBS FOR YOUR CHICKEN STOCK
BEST SPICES AND HERBS FOR YOUR CHICKEN STOCK
Chicken soup spices play a key role in the process of cooking. There are numerous spices you can use to make your chicken soup even more delicious, tasty and even exquisite. Experimenting with chicken soup spices can yield multitude of wonderful flavors for soup for every taste. Let’s discuss.
Do you often eat chicken soups out of home, in cafes and restaurants? It’s delicious! Every time you try to make soup at home you feel like you miss in taste. Take it easy! First, use ingredients of high quality. If your soup is still pale and tasteless, think of a new ingredient to brighten it up.
The classic recipe says:
Take a deep pan and brown the bird plus olive oil. Cut some onions and carrots. Throw in some celery. Boiled vegetables can’t help to add more taste to your soup. Caramelized veggies can boost your dish flavor.
Then, try to deglaze the pan with a touch of white wine plus herbs and spices. You really need herbs to make a strong healing stock. So, classic spices you MUST HAVE in the chicken soup are sea salt, black pepper, garlic, onion, fresh or dried parsley.
You can throw in more spices to make your chicken soup taste perfect.
Chicken Soup Spices: Popular Recipes and Fresh Approach
Let’s come back to the basics. First and foremost, make sure the stock is enough salty and flavored with black pepper. Is it salty enough? Sea salt is good. Now, it’s a turn of herbs. It would be great if you dress your soup with some fresh rosemary, thyme, and parsley. Add them almost at the end of the cooking process and leave for 10 minutes under the cover.
Add some black pepper
This popular spice will make your soup taste bitter and warm. You may also use white pepper for that purpose. Of course, the best variant is using freshly ground pepper. A pinch is enough.
Celery
It must be one of the most important herbs for traditional chicken soup. Chopped celery can be added almost at the end of the cooking process for bringing a fresh herbaceous flavor to your dish. Also, you may add a couple of whole celery stalks at the start of the cooking time for better soup texture.
Parsley
This is an important active green element that must be added for flavor and nutritional value. By the way, it contrasts with the yellow color of stock and stimulates appetite.
Green oregano or marjoram
These spices belong to the mint family. You should pick just one to add some freshness to your dish. Using both of these herbs will make your dish overpowering.
Onion
Onion is an important ingredient for many soups. Use it raw every time to make your dish stronger in taste. Do you want to make your soup light and soft in taste? Therefore you should add a bulb or two in a stockpot to boil for hours. Onion makes all soups better.
Garlic
Garlic is as crucial for your chicken soup as onions. You don’t need it much. You can find many different soup recipes that don’t recommend adding garlic. It’s up to you!
SPICES FOR CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP
You can choose any of all existing soup recipes. Homemade chicken soups are recommended to eat when you are sick. What if you are not sick? You should try some chicken noodle soup for variety.
What spices should you throw in your noodle soup?
First of all, consider adding some salt. This is the first and the most important ingredient that helps to make a bright and piquant dish. Just salt your soup enough to taste. Again, sea salt is milder than regular table salt. Anyway, your guests will always feel free to use a salt-cellar to salt soup to their taste.
What’s next? Usual carrots and celery are not enough. What about adding some sweet potato? It gives sweetness and vitamin A to your dish. Also, there are many interesting spices that can help potato to work well and make your noodle soup taste prominent.
So, never forget to add some black pepper and cayenne pepper. These hot spices are good for digestion and metabolism. Of course, you don’t need to make your soup spicy hot! Just add some for flavor strength.
Finally, you need some paprika to help your body heal faster. Do you want more herbs? You can go the traditional way and put some fresh parsley and basil in the soup pot. These two herbs suit any of the chicken soups the most.
SPICES FOR CHICKEN VEGETABLE SOUP
Vegetable chicken soup can be your favorite dish! You can fill it with season vegetables and interesting spices. If you are bored with your old recipe you can change it by mixing the healthiest ingredients. You already know that celery, salt, parsley, garlic powder, marjoram, and black pepper are excellent for the soup base.
How about adding some lemon? It will help to connect all the flavors together. What else can you add to your vegetable chicken soup to vary the menu?
Throw in some paprika
Actually, you can hardly find a spice better than paprika! It’s a miracle spice if you want to vary the taste of your vegetable soup without making it too hot. Paprika looks exactly like cayenne but works in a different way. Its flavor is less hot and will never burn your tongue. You need no more than a half of a teaspoon of paprika per pot.
Bay leaves
Do you want to make your soup piquant? Bay leaves are what you need. They are also called bay laurel leaves. These aromatic leaves are often used in many different dishes, including soups. You may need no more than 3–4 leaves per pot. You will love the new taste of your dish. Make sure you removed all the leaves from the pot after cooking.
Curry
Curry is a popular spice for chicken and veggie dishes. The flavor of curry is recognizable and suits your soup in a reasonable proportion. Curry works well with acorn and butternut combinations. Use curry powder carefully just to vary the taste of your soup, not to change it.
Chili powder
Be careful with chili powder! Adding some doesn’t make your soup hot and spicy. Even if you are not a chili lover, add just a touch of this spice to boost the taste of your soup. Keep in mind that your soup will not taste like chili if you add just a bit.
Cumin
Veggie soup can be easily enchanted by cumin. Its great smoky taste suits any vegetable dish. This is another spice you must be careful with. Add just a pinch of cumin to the soup pot while the dish is cooking so that the spicy flavor can meld with other vegetables. Again, the recipe for a traditional chicken veggie soup goes without cumin.
More Great Spices to Make Tasty Chicken Soup
Black pepper
Attention! Attention! Whatever kind of soup you cook, don’t forget the black pepper. It makes everything taste better. The unique taste of the black pepper is soft and hardly visible if you portion it wisely.
Don’t worry if your fridge is empty and you don’t have fresh herbs at hand. You may always use dried spices and herbs. Have you ever tried a pack of dried parsley, dried chives, garlic and onion powder? These spices can be easily found on the shelves of the nearest supermarket.
Of course, they can’t help you to make your chicken soup deep in flavor. On the other hand, dried herbs are easier to use and store. Try to add dry herbs at the beginning of the cooking process to give them some time to work. What’s your favorite easy way to spice up vegetable soup?
Sea Salt
Sea salt is not technically a spice but it is preferred choice of mine when it comes to salting anything. There are many benefits of sea salt over regular table salt, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this article. Sea salt makes soups or other liquids tastier, and better for enjoying chicken soup as well.
Sea salt also helps to preserve food little longer — it has such effect to slow down bacteria from growing and making food bad.
Ginger
You can add some fresh or powdered ginger to your chicken soup. Ginger adds to soup some different and stronger flavor. If you have a cold — chicken soup with some ginger in it is even better. But, make sure you put just a little bit of ginger. Too much of ginger will make soup too spicy to eat and enjoy. I tried it once — I still remember the spicy taste!
Pasta Sauce
How could we forget adding some fresh quality pasta sauce to chicken soup? I know, I know — it is not a spice. But pasta sauce already has some spices in it. Adding some sauce to your soup will yield a flavor very different from original. You can play with different sauces to find few flavors that you will love so much as to be ready to share with your friends by inviting them over to try next version of your soup.
Overall, there are many more spices to add to chicken soup. Using imagination and desire to experiment will produce many different and wonderful flavors of old chicken soup!
