Lemon Chicken and Rice Soup
The best kind of comfort in a bowl! It’s so cozy and heartwarming, using a whole chicken for the most amazing homemade broth!
So we packed our bags and left LA to head to Manhattan for Thanksgiving this year.
And I kid you not. It was the coldest Thanksgiving in New York’s City history since 1901.
It was a whopping 17 degrees F on Thursday. And all I really needed at that point was a piping hot bowl of this chicken and rice soup!
Instead, we froze our butts off, watching Charlie Brown go by in the parade.
But now that I’m home in 70 degree weather, I’m still whipping up this soup. AKA. My favorite soup of the month, of course.
The best part is that you get to simmer an entire whole chicken, creating the most amazing homemade broth ever. It’s cozy, comforting and incredibly heartwarming for any kind of weather.
And while, yes, the broth is bomb.com, the fresh dill and lemon juice really let this soup shine.
Lemon Chicken and Rice Soup
Ingredients
- 1 3-4 pound whole chicken, rinsed
- 1 onion, cut into wedges
- 2 carrots, halved
- 2 celery ribs, halved
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 bay leaves
- Kosher salt freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- ⅔ cup long-grain white rice
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 1 cup diced celery
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Instructions
- Place chicken, onion, carrots, celery, garlic, bay leaves and 8 cups water in a large stockpot or Dutch oven; season with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.
- Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until chicken is fork-tender, about 1 hour. Remove chicken and shred; discard skin and bones. Set aside. Strain broth through a fine-mesh sieve; discard solids.
- Return broth to the pot. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer. Stir in rice; cover and cook for 10 minutes.
- Stir in chicken, carrots and celery. Cook, covered, until the rice is tender, about 10 more minutes.
- Stir in dill and lemon juice; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Serve immediately.
Did you make this recipe?
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Looks great. Will try this in the next few days (as whole chicken defrost in fridge).
One comment about rinsing chicken. USDA says consumers should NOT rinse raw poultry:
” Food Safety experts (including us at USDA) do not recommend washing raw meat and poultry before cooking. Many bacteria are quite loosely attached and when you rinse these foods the bacteria will be spread around your kitchen.”
You might want to edit the ingedients to remove “rinsed”.
Ah, I’ve always wanted to see the Macy’s parade!! How incredibly cool that you got to go!
The soup looks delicious too! I have some of your cold fighting chicken noodle soup in my freezer. I’m not even really a soup eater, but that soup was fantastic!
I know you hate it when people ask you about substitutions but I became a Pescarian for about three months and I love the this soup do you think I could drop some shrimp in it for three minutes before it’s done and use seafood stock do you think that would be OK thank you I love your site
What a great idea! But unfortunately, without having tried this myself, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment when making substitutions and modifications.
I first had a version of this soup in a little Greek restaurant in St Augustine, Florida. The Greek name is Avgolemono and it’s traditionally thickened with eggs. I love dill and lemon, this recipe is a keeper!
Ahhh…. add eggs and Greek’s Avgolemono !
Do you have the nutritional information on this? Calories, carbs, fat?
Thank you! 🙂
Nutritional information is provided only for select recipes at this time. However, if it is not available for a specific recipe, we recommend using free online resources at your discretion (you can Google “nutritional calculator”) to obtain such information. Hope that helps!
You’re so right – soups utterly amazing!!!! Big thanks for posting your fave.