How to Make Chicken Soup in a Slow Cooker

Two mainstays of comfort food are: anything that’s slow cooked, and any form of chicken soup. Well, bestselling cookbook author and Food Network personality Theresa Albert has a delicious recipe that combines these two into a “souper” comfort food: home-made slow cooked chicken soup.

All it requires is tossing chicken bones and a few vegetables (you don’t even have to peel them!) in a slow cooker. Add a drop of vinegar (it will help leech more calcium from the bones into the broth). After cooking on low for about 6-8 hours you’ve got a rich, tasty, nourishing broth. Just remember to wash all utensils, cutting boards and counters with warm soapy water and a cap of bleach.

If you’re really keen you can even pick the meat off the bones, but the mushy carrots and onions should get tossed (dogs love carrots cooked in broth) and new fresh or frozen vegetables added.

This is a fantastic recipe for a home-cooked midweek meal—plus, it makes great use of the remains of a whole chicken. Just put the ingredients in your slow cooker in the morning, and when you come home, soup’s up! You can also garnish your soup with baby spinach, grated cheese, crumbled tortilla chips and hot sauce to taste.

Watch the video for a complete step-by-step from Theresa on how to make this delicious and easy chicken stock, and you’ll wonder why you ever bought chicken stock in the past.

What you’ll need:

• chicken bones, or a whole chicken carcass
• 3 carrots
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 onion
• 2 tbsp white vinegar
• 4 cups water
• slow cooker