A quick small batch turkey or chicken soup with corn and noodles.

Turkey or Chicken and Corn Soup

Tis the season for soup!

Even though the weather has been pretty consistently inconsistent here in the Deep South.

We've been flip-flopping between freezing to humid and warm down here along the beach - and mostly warm and humid lately. But you know what they say... just wait a day or three and that's subject to change of course!

A quick, small batch creamy chicken and rice soup with herbs.

Small Batch Cream of Chicken Soup with Rice

You cannot beat a homemade soup, though there's not a single thing wrong with canned soup either, and in fact, you can always find a can or three in my pantry.

I mean how can you not at least have some Campbell's chicken noodle soup on hand?! Seriously.

Some canned soups are better than others of course, but... sometimes, you just want a few servings of soup that's homemade, fresh and hot and not out of a can, but without a lot of work or that makes a massive pot! This is that.

A small batch, quick and delicious soup made with cooked chicken and chicken stock, loads of vegetables, and tiny shell pasta.

Chicken and Vegetable Soup

We've had a nice, though likely temporary, reprieve from the heat and humidity these last couple of days. It's so nice when the oppressive heat goes away even for a bit and we can breathe a little easier, but... it is still September. We have lots of summer still to go around in the Deep South!

A blend of Tex-Mex seasonings, pantry staples and some cooked chicken make for a quick and hearty chicken soup. Shown here with my Honey Jalapeno cornbread.

Chicken Taco Soup

I absolutely love this soup, whether it's made with ground beef or chicken. It's got such great flavor and it's about the easiest soup there is to throw together.

You can start with raw chicken that you poach, a deli chicken or chicken that you previously put up in the freezer, which I tend to have the most. Thanks to on-sale whole chickens, an Instant Pot and a Food Saver, there is always some cooked chicken in my freezer. I chose to chop up my chicken this time, though shredded is also good for this.

A quick, small batch soup, made using a vegetable mirepoix of onion, carrot and celery, with fresh minced garlic, okra, tomatoes, leftover cooked chicken and rice and a quality commercial stock or broth.

Southern-Style Chicken and Rice Soup

Whole chickens are on sale around here often and I sure take advantage of them, always buying a larger one for intentional leftovers. Sometimes I'll roast one, sometimes stew it, or cut it up and bake it.

Very often I'll use my Instant Pot {affil link} to cook a whole chicken using my "ready chicken" recipe, use some of it for a meal, then reserve the rest to use in a soup, chicken and dumplings, a casserole, some chicken salad, or even just to put up in the freezer for another day.

Instant Pot/Electronic Pressure Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup

Homemade chicken noodle soup, made from a whole chicken in an electronic pressure cooker.

Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup

If you've been a friend of this blog for any amount of time, you already know that I love my food cooked the old-fashioned way - in the oven or on the top of the stove, low and slow. It's part of the whole process that birthed this recipe website to begin with - connecting to my Mama and Grandma through cooking, after Hurricane Katrina changed my entire career path overnight.

There's just something magical that happens with that low and slow process that makes you understand the whole emotional connection to our past while cooking for someone in the present, and how it literally explodes the flavor in a dish that just doesn't happen any other way.

Chicken Pot Pie Soup with Pie Crust Crackers

The elements and flavors from classic chicken pot pie - chopped chicken, potatoes, peas and carrots - in a creamy base - in an easy soup, with pie crust crackers for dipping.

Chicken Pot Pie Soup

I made this soup using elements of my Chicken Pot Pie recipe as the base, but I totally stole the idea for the pie crust crackers from Food Network Magazine's {affil link} December 2012 issue.
They used a commercial, refrigerated crust, but homemade pie crusts are really so easy to whip up I decided to make one and incorporate the seasonings in the dough, rather than just on top. To shorten prep time, substitute a commercial crust, but please do make the crackers, either way. They really just make this soup perfect.

 

  A creamy chicken soup that uses strips of flour tortillas as a dumpling.

Chicken Dumplin' Soup

How can you not love a soup that is called Chicken Dumplin' Soup? I mean seriously.

When we were chatting one day over on the Facebook page about Chicken and Dumplings, or more specifically, drop dumplings versus rolled dumplings, one of the readers there mentioned using tortillas as her dumplings.

Mary's Basic Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Homey and healing chicken noodle soup, made with a homemade stock from a whole chicken and fresh veggies.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

I was feeling a bit under the weather this weekend so I decided to put on a pot of chicken noodle soup. Funny thing about this stuff... I can get a pot going, leave it warming on the stove along side a pot of cooked egg noodles, snatch a cup of it several times throughout the day and feel all better before nightfall. Often referred to as "Jewish Penicillin" for its known powers of healing, it really does work and that's not just an old wives tale either!