Try this Lime Quinoa and Chicken Soup recipe, or contribute your own.
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 3/4 cup quinoa uncooked
- 1/2 lime, juice of
- 1 medium whole chicken (4 - 5 lbs) skin and fat removed
- 1 small onion peeled
- 3 - 4 bay leaves
- 5 - 7 peppercorns
- cold water enough to cover the chicken
- 1/2 cup tomatillo salsa
- 2 cups corn frozen (unthawed)
- 1 jalapeã±o, seeded & minced
- 1 + 1/2 tsp salt
- cilantro & extra lime for serving
- Carbohydrate 17.3743600028273 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 1.50010500142324 g
- Fiber 3.5427500386988 g
- Protein 2.49701500113821 g
- Saturated Fat 0.1880525000981 g
- Serving Size 1 1 recipe (201g)
- Sodium 10.7920000107366 mg
- Sugar 13.8316099641285 g
- Trans Fat 0.349164000218312 g
- Calories 82 calories
Step-by-step
- To make chicken stock (optional): Add chicken, onion, bay leaves and peppercorns to a large pot and add cold water enough to cover the chicken.
- Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and cook for 1 hour, skimming the foam occasionally.
- Transfer chicken stock to plastic containers, let them cool and freeze.
- To make the soup: Fill the pot (with cooked chicken in it) with cold water again, bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and cook for 30 minutes.
- Discard onion, bay leaves and peppercorns.
- Transfer chicken to a large plate, remove the bones, shred and return to the pot.
- Add salsa, quinoa, corn, cumin, jalapeño and salt.
- Cook for 20 minutes or until quinoa is cooked.
- Add lime juice and adjust any spices if desired.
- Serve hot with extra cilantro, lime and tortilla chips.
Adding citrus juice at a rolling boil destroys the volatile aromatic compounds that give fresh fruit its brightness. Many home cooks squeeze the lime directly into the simmering broth, losing the distinct punch that defines the dish. Fresh citrus must be stirred in strictly off the heat just before serving to preserve those top notes.
The underlying problem here involves building depth without commercial broth. Simmering a whole bird with an unpeeled onion, bay leaves, and whole peppercorns creates a clean, gelatin-rich stock, provided the water starts cold. Starting with cold water draws out proteins gradually, allowing impurities to coagulate into a foam that you can skim easily from the surface. If you drop the chicken into boiling water instead, those proteins trap themselves inside the meat, leaving the liquid cloudy and thin.
Tomatillo salsa introduces acidity and body simultaneously, but bottled varieties often contain vinegar that overpowers the delicate corn and quinoa. Freshly roasted tomatillos blended with raw aromatics yield a grassy tartness that integrates better with the ground cumin and minced jalapeño. When substituting preserved salsa for fresh, reduce the final lime juice quantity by half to prevent the soup from becoming unpalatably sour.
Adjusting the yield requires attention to surface area evaporation during the thirty-minute simmer phase. Halving the batch in a wide four-quart pot will cause the liquid to reduce too quickly, leaving the quinoa overcooked and mushy before the corn yields its starch. Keep the lid partially cracked if you scale down the measurements to maintain the proper liquid-to-grain ratio.
