Peruvian Chicken and Cilantro Soup with Quinoa
SERVES 6 TO 8 · GF, DF
There’s a popular restaurant close to my house called El Pollo Inka that serves up traditional Peruvian food. My favorite item on the menu is Aquadito, a light and fresh brothy chicken soup infused with lots of cilantro. It normally contains rice, but this recipe uses quinoa, which happens to be native to Peru and Bolivia and is a natural fit here. Besides the flavor, what so many of my students love about this recipe is the ease of starting with water and making your own stock from the beginning.
2½ pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces, or a whole small chicken, quartered
6 tablespoons quinoa, rinsed and drained
2 Yukon Gold potatoes or boiling potatoes, unpeeled or peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
1 celery stalk, halved crosswise
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
3 teaspoons sea salt
1 cup organic fresh or frozen, diced mixed vegetables (e.g., carrots, green beans, whole corn kernels, and/or peas)
½ bunch cilantro
Freshly ground black pepper
Freshly squeezed lime juice (optional)
1. Bring the chicken, quinoa, potatoes, celery, garlic, 1 teaspoon of the salt, and 8 cups of water to a boil in a soup pot over high heat. Skim off any impurities that rise to the surface. Lower the heat to medium and simmer, partially covered, until the chicken is tender, about 30 minutes.
2. Remove the soup from the heat. Remove the chicken and celery stalk.
3. Add the frozen mixed vegetables to the soup.
4. Process the cilantro and ½ cup of water in a blender. Stir into the soup mixture.
5. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones and shred into bite-size pieces. Discard the skin, bones, and celery stalk or freeze and save for making stock.
6. Return the chicken meat to the soup and add 2 teaspoons of salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with lime juice to taste just before serving, if desired.
7. To freeze, follow the instructions here for freezing stock.
White rice or brown rice can be used in place of the quinoa. White rice will cook the same as quinoa. To make with brown rice, you should still take out chicken after 30 minutes. Allow brown rice to cook for another 15 before adding the shredded chicken back to the pot.
ASK PAMELA: Frozen vegetables seem like they wouldn’t be nutritious. Are they okay to use? No one seems to be discouraged by using frozen fruit, but frozen vegetables get a bad rap. I’m not sure why! Fresh is certainly best, but frozen vegetables are picked at their peak and frozen within hours of harvest, thereby locking in the nutrients. Once produce is picked, vitamins start to degrade immediately. By the time it has reached your plate, that fresh vegetable may have fewer nutrients than its frozen counterpart. So, frozen veggies are fine by me, and they are nice to have on hand for convenience. Unfortunately, the same does not hold true for canned vegetables!
TIP: Cilantro is an amazing detoxifying and chelating herb, which means it can attach itself to heavy metals and pull them out of the body. Cilantro is also a polarizing food; people either love it or hate it. Most haters tell me cilantro tastes like soap or lotion to them. There are theories that disliking cilantro can be genetic. Sometimes you can leave it out of a recipe or substitute another herb, such as parsley. But if you really dislike cilantro, this soup recipe is probably not the one for you.