Chicken Pot Pie Soup

I love a good collection of recipes, and I have long felt that ours has lacked in the soup department. Perhaps it's because I commuted for so many years, and there wasn't time to assemble a soup and let it simmer properly before it was time to eat. Perhaps I have just never pursued the soup world. I have no idea.

Regardless of the reason for my soup failures to this point, our recent implementation of Tuesdays at the Table meant I needed to find some new recipes for the rotation. And I found a recipe for chicken pot pie soup on Pinterest. How comfort-foodish did that sound? All the goodness of chicken pot pie without the embarrassment of revealing I am incapable of making a decent crust. {Whoopsie. Guess I just did that.}

I've made more tweaks since the first time I made it, and I have to say - it's pretty delicious. It also comes together fairly quickly, which makes it even better. Ryan has given it two thumbs up and declared it a keeper, so I decided to preserve it in the Shafferland recipe box. With soup season officially here, I wanted to pass it on to you in case you'd like something new to try!

Chicken Pot Pie Soup

* 1 Tablespoon coconut oil
* 1 medium onion, diced
* 1 Tablespoon garlic powder
* 1 cup diced mushrooms
* 1/3 cup wheat flour
* 3 cups low sodium chicken stock
* 2 cups low-fat milk
* 3 cups shredded cooked chicken
* 1 pound cubed frozen hash brown potatoes
* 1 bag frozen mixed vegetables
* 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
* 1 teaspoon seasoned salt

Melt coconut oil in a stock pot and cook onion in it for a couple of minutes until tender. Add garlic powder and mushrooms and cook for a couple more minutes. Add wheat flour and stir well until mushrooms and onions are coated. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower heat and continue cooking until heated all the way through. Simmer on very low heat until ready to serve. Serve with biscuits to serve as a crust.

 A Few Tips:

* If you don't have coconut oil, you can use vegetable oil to saute the onions.


* I use fresh mushrooms because we almost always have some on hand. If you don't keep them on hand, you can easily substitute canned mushrooms. Or, if you don't like them, you can leave them out entirely.

* You can use fresh garlic instead of powder. The original recipe called for 4 cloves.

* I use wheat flour, because it's what we have. You could use whatever kind of flour you have.

* I cook my chicken in big batches and divide it up to use in all kinds of things. {Quesadillas, BBQ chicken, etc.} I just boil it and then put it in my stand mixer to shred it. I also add some seasoned salt to it when it's freshly shredded, just to help with the flavoring of whatever dish I'm making.

* The first time I made this, I bought a bag of potatoes and cubed them. It took forever and we didn't use them all and the excess went bad and made a big mess in our pantry. I started using frozen cubed hash brown potatoes instead, so I could put in only what we need and skip the mess of cubing the potatoes/having the rest go bad.

* The original recipe called for all manner of fresh veggies, but I truly hate all the prep work of dicing them. So I decided to use a bag of frozen mixed veggies instead, and it worked very well.

* Ryan adds more seasoned salt to his bowls of soup. Easily done for those who want a little more salt!

* I've served this with biscuits {from a can - let's not imagine I'm better than I am} and that worked really well. Ryan loves a pot pie crust, so he put the biscuit in the bottom of his bowl and put the soup over it. On the days when I didn't feel like I could spare the carbs, I could skip the biscuits entirely, and on the days I wanted one, I could eat it separately, because I hate wet bread. Win-win!

* The last time I made this soup, I didn't have biscuits on hand, so I used cornbread, and it worked really well, too!

* This reheats beautifully!