As the cool days of autumn arrive I often crave a bowl of hot homemade soup! One of my favourite soups is the nutritious “chicken and squash” soup with loads of veggies.

Side notes:

• I find that the easiest way to make butternut squash puree, is to roast the whole squash (after washing) in the oven. To do this, I poke a few whole in the squash with a fork and then roast it in the oven for 1-1.5 hour at 425 Fahrenheit. I then take the squash out of the oven, slice in half, take out the seeds and scoop out the flesh into a high speed blender (such as Vitamix) and puree until smooth!

• I always freeze some fresh ginger and tumeric to have them on hand whenever I need some. It is also much easier to grate the tumeric and ginger once they are frozen!
• You can use baby spinach instead of kale and chard, in that case add the spinach at the very end, just before turning off the heat!
• The sushi rice gives this soup a thicker and creamier texture, but you can use any other type of white rice, or to make the dish paleo you can skip the rice altogether!

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Ingredients:

• 8 cups Home-made Chicken Broth
• 1 cup Roasted Butternut Squash Puree
• 2 Medium Carrots
• 2 Celery Stalks
• 1 Large Turnip
• 2-3 cups (packed) Greens (I usually use a mix of Kale and Swiss Chard)
• 1 Roasted Chicken Breast, Shredded
• 1/2 cup Sushi Rice (or any other type of white rice) – Boiled and Drained
• 1 Clove Garlic
• 2 inch Piece of Fresh Tumeric
• 2 inch Piece of Fresh Ginger
• 1 Tsp. Dried Thyme
• Juice of 1 Lemon (or more if you like it more sour!)
• 1/2 cup Finely Chopped Parsely
• Salt (start with 1/2 Tsp.) and Freshly Ground Pepper, to Taste

Method

1. In a large pot bring the chicken broth to a boil and finely grate the ginger, tumeric and garlic.

2. Add in the squash puree, dried thyme, salt and pepper and stir.

3. Chop all the veggies and add to the pot with the shredded chicken and pre-boiled rice.

4. Turn down the heat, cover the pot and cook for about 1 hour. Turn off the heat and add the lemon juice and parsley and more salt and pepper if needed. Serve hot! 🙂

Serves 4-6.