Swiss Chard Soup Delight

Hello, tender friends!

It’s Swiss chard season here in SW Virginia, and every season makes me aware of my ignorance in seasons past. Here is my confession: the only thing I used Swiss chard for last year was juicing, as a wrap in place of bread for my chicken/veggie combos, and in salad.

This feels like madness now!

Swiss chard is so much more than I anticipated. The firmer texture than spinach, the satisfying crunch, and the earthy flavor make it perfect for adding into soups. That’s some of our rainbow chard in the garden below. It looks small because I’ve obviously been harvesting a lot lately.

Here’s what I did this week, all in a large stock pot, so that it was a one-pot meal with the exception of the chicken cooked separately. This meal is paleo friendly as long as your bullion, if you use it, doesn’t have anything weird like corn-derived maltodextrin in it.

You will need:

3 onions

2 heads of celery

10 large juicing carrots

1 bulb of garlic

1 red skin or white potato

1 butternut squash

Veggie stock or bone broth (about a cup)- I recommend homemade if possible

2 cans of coconut milk (I recommend full fat because I love full fat foods and because the light version seems to break down and lose its flavor)

Dried thyme

Dried basil

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Fresh shredded ginger

Chicken thighs

Fresh Swiss chard

Fresh basil and thyme

Here are the directions:

Precook your chicken thighs. Leave out for at least a half hour before baking with salt, pepper and garlic powder coating. (I don’t remember where I learned this, but you should leave all your meat with full seasonings on it out at room temperature for at least a half hour before cooking. It really does make the meat juicier and more flavorful).

Sautee 3 chopped onions, two heads of chopped celery, and peeled and cut in olive oil for about five minutes. I can’t prove this, but I believe that cutting celery and carrots longways and sideways increases the flavor, so I recommend this method if possible.

This is the base I use for almost everything since learning what mirepoix is in a cooking class Anthony and I took in New Orleans about 8 years ago. If you’re a beginning paleo cook, use this as your soup base for everything and you’ll be delighted!

Add minced fresh garlic bulb. Cut a potato and a butternut squash into cubes and add to the pot. Coat this mixture in the salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, dried thyme, dried basil and allspice so that you can see spices on all the surface area of the vegetables. I made this soup twice and didn’t add enough spice to cover all surface area the second time because I ran out, and the flavor was not nearly the same. So you really want the vegetables coated in the spices. Cook the coated vegetables for another 5 minutes.

Add in the fresh grated ginger. Pour in two cans of coconut milk and veggie or bone broth until the desired thickness of your soup is met. Allow this mixture to boil, then put on a low simmer with the lid on for another 20 minutes. When the butternut squash is soft enough, take off the heat and add chopped, fresh Swiss chard and fresh thyme and fresh basil. This is highly individual, but I only use residual heat once I add the Swiss chard so that the heat reduces the volume a bit, but I don’t actually cook the Swiss chard inside the soup because I like the crunchiness. I don’t like cooking fresh herbs to death, so I add them in at the same time. Cube your chicken and throw it in.

Enjoy!

*If you accidentally underutilize the herbs, I recommend bringing the flavor out with a bullion cube.

**I also recommend harvesting the Swiss chard fresh each time you eat this and adding only the amount you’re going to eat at that sitting. This was 3 days’ worth of soup for us, but I added the Swiss Chard separately each time to ensure maximum freshness. I also added beet leaves one day because I didn’t have any chard to harvest that day. The beet leaves were good as a substitute, but the Swiss chard is superior for flavor and texture.

*** I left the potato out the second time I made this and it was not the same. Even though it ups the carb count, I recommend leaving the potato in if you’re able to. I also recommend using the sweetest squash you can find, so look for a darker brown outside and fragrant orange inside.

For those of you who are new, thank you! To plan your readership, I’ll be writing about connecting with God through mitochondria this coming Monday and sharing a smattering of kitchen creations on Thursday!

Thank you for stopping by, and have a great day!

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