Cream of Spiced Pumpkin Chicken Soup, Gluten-Free

This soup is so easy, and you really can change it around to suit your taste!

Combine seasonings in a small bowl. Sprinkle chicken breasts with half of the seasonings. Heat a large soup pot over medium high heat. Once it’s hot, add the chicken and sear a nice crust on both sides. Do this by only turning them once per side. Cook for roughly 5-6 minutes per side or until no longer pink (time will depend on thickness of chicken). Remove chicken to a plate and let it rest while you prepare the soup base.

Add the onions, carrots and potatoes into the pot and saute on medium until golden, then add the second half of the seasonings and stir. Add the pumpkin and the applesauce to the veggies.

Put the whole chicken breasts back into the pot and coat with the veggies.

Add the chicken stock or water. I really have no idea how much I added, I lost count after the third addition! I say go by the size of the pan and your preferred soup consistency. Add a dash or two of additional salt to compensate if you added water and not stock.

Add 3/4 of the cornstarch into a cup with a dash of water. Mix to combine. Then add it into the soup pot.

Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer and cook for a good 45 minutes to an hour. You want that chicken breast to get as tender as possible so it will just fall apart with a folk in a bit.

Now you will want to take the lid off, remove the chicken from the pot to a cutting board and shred the chicken with a folk. Add it back into the pot.

Keep the lid off, turn heat to low and let the soup cool a bit. Now the scary part: incorporating the milk without curdling it! Let the soup cool down while you heat up the milk in a small saucepan to medium-hot, then stir in the remaining cornstarch. Ladle some of the hot soup mixture into the milk, stir to combine then add it back into the whole soup pot. You can also use heavy cream. If you do just use less than the amount I have listed for milk. The more fat the milk has the less likely it is to curdle. Good excuse for using cream!

Add the pasta, broccoli and the green peas, and keep the lid off; let it cook for another 30 minutes or so, stirring often so the pasta doesn’t stick together. Gluten-free pasta has a tendency to do this!

There you go! I think it tastes a bit like fried chicken and apple pie together. Enjoy!