Crock It! Chicken And Tortellini Soup

Once the weather gets cold, I’m a soup girl, but there are two challenges that come with one of my favorite types of meals.

My first challenge is creating a variety of  soups– I get bored. I easily have five or six cookbooks for just soups and a plethora of other cookbooks that have soup recipes included in the content.

My second soup challenge is the timing. By the time I’m making lunch for myself I’m starving and the act of making soup from scratch just takes too long.

So, I turned to my Pasta Soups and Salads cookbook from Williams Sonoma and the Tortellini Soup looked really good. I had just bought one of those large containers of cheese tortellini at Costco and this seemed like a good way to use some of it. However, I still had my timing issues as well as my goals to make the soup heartier and to make it slow cooker friendly.

I played around in my kitchen and the result: a hearty Chicken and Tortellini Soup made ahead in my Crock-Pot that’s worthy of any cold winter day.

Chicken and Tortellini Soup

Ingredients:

1 yellow onion, cut in half and sliced thin

3 carrots peeled and sliced

6 cups of chicken broth

half of a 10 oz. package of frozen chopped spinach

2 split chicken breasts

8 oz cheese tortellini

1 small green zucchini cut lengthwise, quartered, and in a large dice.

fresh grated Parmesan and lemon juice for garnish (optional)

What’s Next:

1. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper.
2. In a skillet with some olive oil, brown the chicken breasts skin side down for about 5-7 minutes. Set aside.
3. Saute the onion and carrots, for 5-7 minutes in the same pan adding more oil if necessary. Add browned onion and carrot to slow cooker.
4. Place in slow cooker on top of carrots and onion.
5. Pour in the chicken broth.
6. Cover and cook on high for 4-5 hours.
7. Remove chicken and when cool enough to handle, remove skin and meat from bones and shred with two forks.
8. Add chicken back to slow cooker. Along with zucchini and spinach.
9. Add cheese tortellini, cover and continue to cook for another 30 minutes.
10. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

Notes from my experience:

The tortellini actually held up well for the next day or so in the refrigerator. However, if you are making a single serving, add less tortellini  and eat it all in one seating. When re-heating the soup on another day, more tortellini can be added.

I added a little lemon juice and grated Parmesan to my soup. Delicious.

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