Bone Broth Soup with Chicken, Barley & Kale
Stock soup has to be one of my favorite childhood memories – my Mom always used to make it with a leftover chicken carcass that was stored in the freezer, and she would load with with delicious veggies, garlic, and ginger! It’s such a simple thing to make, yet gives so much flavor. I recently started making more roast chickens, and experimenting with the traditional chicken sweetcorn soup I grew up with (recipe link below). I wanted to add a different flavor, and incorporate kale and lentils. This Bone Broth Soup with Chicken, Barley & Kale is what I came up with! It’s packed with flavor, easy to make, and has a number of health benefits – which I talk about more below!
Notes
This is a great soup as it’s super easy to make, gentle on the stomach, and packed with healthy ingredients. You can also easily omit or sub a few of the ingredients which I will go through below.
As a top note when it comes to purchasing your ingredients, try to buy organic veggies, and organic/pasture raised chicken/beef bones. I know it can cost a little extra, but it’s well worth the reward to have less toxic meats and veggies in our body. Besides going to your local farmers market, there are a few great online meat companies that offer organic/pasture raised meats, like Bucher Box, and Thrive Market!
Beef broth – The reason I love bone broth so much is it has amazing health qualities, such as hydration, digestion, and joint health. There are also many other healing benefits:
- Collagen: Bone broth is high in collagen, the most abundant protein in the body. Collagen helps strengthen bones, muscles, tendons, and skin. It also contains amino acids like glycine and arginine, which may help reduce inflammation.
- Joint health: Some say that collagen in bone broth can help with joint pain and osteoarthritis.
- Sleep: Bone broth contains glycine, an amino acid that may help promote relaxation and deeper sleep.
- Gut health: Bone broth may have gut healing and anti-diarrheal properties.
- Protein: Bone broth is a natural source of protein, which can help with muscle growth and recovery.
- Bone health: Bone broth contains nutrients like calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus that may support bone health.
- Stress reduction: Collagen contains glycine, which may help inhibit stress and improve mental clarity.
I have made this soup twice now, the first time I used beef knuckle, and the second beef neck – just depends what my farmers market has available. You can use a variety of bones to make bone broth, including: Beef marrow bones, oxtails, short ribs, knuckles, and neck bones are all good options. Beef marrow bones are especially nutritious because they contain a lot of marrow that’s easy to access.
Chicken – make sure to keep all your roast chicken carcasses!! As soon as you’re done carving and it’s cooled to room temperature, pop it in a ziplock bag and store in the freezer for up to 6 months! It’s a delicious addition to stock soup and adds a great depth of flavor. If it’s accessible to you, try to buy organic/pasture raised chickens, as they have less chemicals.
Veggies – If possible, try and keep all the broth basics listed under ‘recipe’, as it will help with the flavor (the carrots, onion, celery, ginger and garlic)! When it comes to the broccoli, this is something you can totally sub if needed or leave out completely! Zucchini would be a perfect sub in this instance! I eat a lot of broccoli, so instead of throwing away the stalks, I trim them, cut into cubes, and store them in the freezer! Perfect for a soup later on! For the kale, if you want to sub this, spinach will be a great choice!
Barley and Lentils – I love both of these ingredients, but if you can’t get your hands on one or both these, farrow will work just as well!
Ingredients
Broth
- 1 lb beef knuckle or beef neck, can be a little more or less. Frozen or fresh
- 1 chicken carcass, frozen
- 1 onion, red or gold
- 4-5 sticks celery
- 1 large carrot, cut in half
- thumb size piece of ginger, skin off
- 3-4 cloves garlic, peeled
- 3-4 bay leaves
- 1 tsp whole peppercorns
- 1.5 – 1.7 litres boiling water
- 1 tsp salt
Soup
- 2-3 organic kale leaves, washed and finely chopped
- 1/3 cup organic barley, washed and soaked
- 1/3 cup organic lentils, washed and soaked
- 1.5 cup cubed broccoli stems, or cubed zucchini
- chicken bits pulled from the carcass, chopped (see step 4)
Bone Broth Soup with Chicken, Barley & Kale
- Total Time: 75
- Yield: 4-5 1x
Description
Bone Broth Soup made with chicken carcass and beef neck, celery, carrots and onions. Finished off with Chicken, Barley, Lentils & Kale! So easy and delicious!
Ingredients
Broth
- 1 lb beef knuckle or beef neck, can be a little more or less. Frozen or fresh
- 1 chicken carcass, frozen
- 1 onion, red or gold
- 4–5 sticks celery
- 1 large carrot, cut in half
- thumb size piece of ginger, skin off
- 3–4 cloves garlic, peeled
- 3–4 bay leaves
- 1 tsp whole peppercorns
- 1.5 – 2 litres boiling water
- 1 tsp salt
Soup
- 2–3 organic kale leaves, washed and finely chopped
- 1/3 cup organic barley, washed and soaked
- 1/3 cup organic lentils, washed and soaked
- 1.5 cup cubed broccoli stems, or cubed zucchini
- chicken bits pulled from the carcass, chopped (see step 4)
Instructions
- Rince the barley and lentils and soak in a large bowl until step 3.
- In a large pot, add all your broth ingredients. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat to low/medium and simmer gently for 35-40 mins, lid on. While your broth boils, prepare any diced veg you are going to add to the soup (for me, I had the cubed broccoli in the freezer), and prepare the kale.
- Once the broth is ready, use a strainer with a large bowl below to capture your broth. Return the broth from the bowl to the pot, and place it back on the stove on a medium heat. Add the drained lentils and barley and simmer with the lid on for 20-25 mins, or until soft.
- While the barley and lentils cook, place your chicken carcass onto a chopping board (taking care as its hot), and discard the rest of the veggies. Using your hands, pick out the left over chicken from the carcass, really getting into all the small corners – there’s quite a lot that gets left behind after carving, but using a fork will not be as effective, use your hands. Finely chop the bits of chicken you remove, and discard the carcass. You should have a decent pile of chicken to add back into the broth if you’ve removed it thoroughly enough.
- Add your chopped chicken leftovers, cubed veg and sliced kale to the simmering broth about 5-7 mins before the lentils and the barley are cooked, adding any more salt if needed.
- Serve as is or with fresh ciabatta and butter! Enjoy!
- Category: Lunch/Dinner
- Method: Stovetop
Keywords: bone broth
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