This slow-cooked chicken cabbage soup is gluten-free and full of flavor. With all flavors chicken noodle soup, only with cabbage instead of noodles. The chicken and vegetables are juicy and tender, the broth is warm and cozy.

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Hello, my friends!

How are you?

I spent the first part of my week helping my computer recover from a nasty virus. And I’m happy to report that it seems to be working again.

I am so glad to be here to share this delicious chicken and cabbage soup with you

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This recipe was born out of necessity

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One day, when I was in the middle of making chicken noodle soup, I remembered that my parents (who live 5 minutes away) came to dinner. My dad has celiac disease, so he can’t eat regular noodles and I didn’t have any gluten-free. So I decided to throw some chopped cabbage away and see what happened.

I

actually think I was planning to add noodles to some of the soups for the kids, but somehow I spaced it out

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So I poured the noodleless chicken noodle soup and no one missed them. The whole pot of soup disappeared. And it has been requested many times since.

I love the

taste of this soup plus these two things about the

recipe

First of all, I love that it’s a

slow cooker recipe.

Can we take a moment to announce the invention of the slow cooker?

Oh, my God. It has saved me on many busy days when I knew I wouldn’t have time to prepare dinner.

And not only that, this is a kind of slow cooker preparation and unloading recipe. Put it in, walk away. Don’t forget to turn it on. Um, did anyone else do that?

Do not be alarmed if the cabbage does not fit under the liquid when you put it. It will be cooked with everything else and will be delicious.

The cooking time depends on your

slow cooker, but in my old 7 quart oval pot it takes about 4 1/2 hours at LOW.

After it is

cooked, all that’s left to do is crush the chicken and it’s ready to serve

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I love these kinds of recipes

. The

second thing I love about this recipe is that it’s super adaptable.

I’ve done it with chicken thighs, chicken breasts, chicken or turkey scraps or even cooked meat still in the carcasses (I’ll tell you how in a minute).

You can also change the vegetables. Once you have the base flavors, everything else is at stake. I’ll give you some ideas of how we changed it below.

This is a great recipe for a “clean the fridge” type of day. Loose and loose-fitting vegetables work very well. Everything is cooked together and comes out delicious.

Well, let’s talk about variations,

I prefer the taste of dark meat in this soup. I’ve made it with chicken breasts and they work in a pinch, but white meat tends to dry out unless it’s cooked for exactly the right time. Dark meat is much more flexible with overcooking, making it the perfect choice for slow cooker recipes.

The easiest thing is to use boneless chicken thighs as the recipe says, but here is another option that I also use all the time.

I’ve told you about these bags of nuts before. In fact, I have two and have never used them to make nut milk yet. But they are super useful things to have around.

With one of my bags of nuts, I make an incredibly creamy homemade ricotta. Very well. And the other is used for soups like this.

Instead of using chicken thighs, I sometimes pack my bag of nuts with the bones and carcass of a whole chicken (like the remains of a roast chicken) or turkey. I throw that into the cooking pot and let it cook with everything else.

Using chicken or turkey on the bone adds tons of extra flavor to the broth (in addition to nutrition). But no one wants to find a lost bone in their soup. That’s where the bag of nuts comes in. It makes it very easy to avoid that. When you’re done, just take it out, open the bag, pick up the meat, and discard the bones.

After using the bag of nuts, you can wash it by hand, throw it in the dishwasher, or even put it in the laundry. After using the meat bag, I wash it and then dip it in some bleach water and let it dry as an extra precaution to kill the bacteria.

Start putting away those roast chickens or Thanksgiving turkey carcasses, my friends. Pack them in freezer bags and stick them in the freezer. They freeze well for up to 6 months. The frozen casing can be packed directly into the bag of nuts when you are ready to make this delicious soup.

Other vegetables that would work include turnips, zucchini, or potatoes. I really like to crush a cooked winter squash (like butternut) and glue it together. It gives the broth a pleasant color and a delicious sweetness to the taste. It would be delicious with some peas thrown at the end too.

So many options. So many variations. Easy, adaptable and very delicious. This soup really has it all. Do it, my friends.

Recipe source: Heather @ The Cook’s Treat

All images and text ©The Cook’s Treat

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