The first thing you’ll want to do is get that butternut squash ready for roasting. Just cut it in half, drizzle it with oil, and season with salt and pepper and bake it in the oven.
Always mise en place. Basically, get all your ingredients prepped and ready before you start cooking.
Always use homemade chicken broth. Your soup will taste so much better!
Cook the bacon and after it gets nice and crispy, set it aside to garnish your soup with it, if you’d like or do what I did. I ate it.
Saute your mirepoix {onions, celery, carrots, and roasted garlic} in the bacon fat.
Throw in the rest of your ingredients and let it simmer away!
Roasted Butternut Squash and Kale Chicken Soup
Source: Lo Huynh (4 servings)
Ingredients:
¼ pound butternut squash, roasted and cut into 1″ cubes
4 cloves garlic, roasted
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 strips bacon, cut into 2 inch pieces
¼ each yellow onion, diced
1 rib celery, diced
1 each carrot, peeled and diced
1 each tomato, diced
½ bunch kale, ribs removed and thinly sliced
1 bunch fresh thyme, remove leaves from stem
1 quart chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 cup cooked chicken, diced
½ cup ditalini, cooked al dente
1 tablespoon fresh basil
tt sea salt
tt freshly ground black pepper
tt parmesan cheese, shaved
Directions:
1. Roast the butternut squash and garlic cloves by drizzling with the extra virgin olive oil and seasoning with sea salt and freshly ground pepper at 425 degrees fahrenheit. Roast the butternut squash for about 30 minutes, or until the butternut squash is tender. Roast the garlic cloves for about 10 to 15 minutes or until it looks golden.
2. Cut the butternut squash into 1″ cubes and set aside.
3. In a dutch oven, fry the bacon until it is crispy. Remove the bacon from the dutch oven and set aside. The bacon can be used to garnish the soup.
4. In the dutch oven, saute the onions, celery, carrots, and roasted garlic in the bacon fat for a couple minutes, or until the onions get soft.
5. Add the tomatoes and thyme leaves and cook this for about a minute.
6. Add the chicken stock to this along with the diced chicken, roasted butternut squash, and kale.
7. Let this simmer over low heat for about fifteen minutes.
8. Add the cooked ditalini and fresh basil to the soup and cook for another five minutes.
9. Adjust the seasonings with the sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
10. Serve the soup with the bacon if you’d like and garnish with shaved parmesan cheese and more freshly cracked black pepper.