ABC Soup

It’s funny. When I look up this soup, every entry I find starts the exact same way it was initially described to me: “I don’t know why it’s called ABC Soup, and there really aren’t any rules on what to put in it…“.

So here’s my official prognosis: ABC Soup is just an easy soup of left-over veggies and a bit of meat. If you have vegetable scraps and a piece of chicken breast sitting around in your fridge, you can make this soup. It really is a fantastic solution for when you just need to eat.

This is also (make note because this may not happen again) my boyfriend’s recipe — sort of. He taught it to me about a year or so ago when he wanted to make dinner one night, and I gradually tweaked the recipe until it reached its current state. Sometimes the vegetables change depending on what’s in my fridge, and I’ve been using rice a lot more than potatoes, but here’s the general idea:

[Prep: 5-20min* / Cook: 30min – 4hrs**]
*depending on your vegetable chopping skills and desired level of “choppiness”
**cooked in 30, but broth tastes best the longer you go

Ingredients

– 500 mL (about 2 cups) chicken broth or water with a chicken bullion/stock cube
– 2 chicken breasts or ½lb+ other chicken parts
– 1 tsp of cinnamon powder
– 1 tsp of black pepper
– ½ tsp coriander/cilantro

An array of veggies:
– 1 onion, quartered
– 2-3 white or champanion mushrooms, sliced
– 2-3 carrots, cut into big chunks
– 2 small/medium tomatoes cut into quarters or eights
– 2-3 cloves of garlic, sliced/chopped
– a few slices of ginger
– a couple small yellow/white potatoes, cut into big chunks

1. Bring the broth to a boil over high heat and chop your veggies.
2. Dump veggies into the pot.
3. Cut the chicken down to manageable sizes if desirable. I completely skip this step if I’m cooking the soup for an hour or more.
4. Add the chicken to the pot. Wait for the soup to return to a rolling boil, reduce the heat to medium or medium low, cover and let simmer for 30min to several hours, depending on your preference.

Notes

• A couple recipes make this with pork ribs or tips. I was taught with chicken, so mine is chicken-based.
• The broth tastes better when you use the dark meat and pieces on the bone…the trade-off is having to pick bones out of your soup.
• This soup is already an all-in-one meal with the meat and veggies and potatoes, but if you want to add more carbs, or just swap out rice for potatoes, you can stir in cooked white/brown rice right before serving. You could cook the rice right in with the soup, but this would require a bit more care and water.