An Easy Dairy Free Cream of Chicken Soup Recipe!

I don't know where it came from, but when my oldest daughter was about 7, she asked me to make her a cream soup. I don't think she'd ever had cream soup at that time and her parents - us - didn't really make much cream soup at home. So, it was one of those out-of-left-field moments. But, it seemed like a fun challenge to figure out how to make a dairy free cream of chicken soup for her to try - and of course, it wasn't just a dairy free soup, it also was a gluten free soup.

As you may know from reading the blog, we're not just a gluten free, dairy free family, we're also soy free. So, it's not like we could just run down to the store and buy the soup. And at that time, alternative dairy free soup products were few and far between. 

Anyway, I found a recipe and tinkered with it a bit to make a dairy free cream of chicken soup. It may not be the best soup you've ever had ... but I think it was successful. My daughter loved it and ate it for two days. I also did one better, I made it in the slow cooker over the weekend. So, I dumped the food in the pot, turned it on, and left it all afternoon. I love 'easy' too. 

Here's what I did. You might tinker more with the "cream" ingredients to fit your family's diet needs and preferences. I obviously made this as a dairy free cream of chicken soup, but you certainly could make it any type of cream-based dairy free soup that you want - mushroom, celery, etc.

Ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped into chunks
• sea salt and black pepper to taste 
• 1 tsp basil 1 tsp thyme 1/2 tsp sage 
• About 2-3 pounds of chicken -- any kind you prefer (I used bone-in breasts with the skin removed and later, pulled the meat off and diced it into small pieces) 
• 2-3 garlic pieces, crushed 
• 5 1/2 cups of water 
• Dairy free milk (I used rice milk) 
• Corn starch -- GF of course 

Place all ingredients, except the dairy free milk and corn starch in the slow cooker. Cook for four hours on high. When nearly-done, pull chicken out and cool. Remove meat from bones. I diced the meat into small pieces and put it back in the cooker.

Before serving, I pulled out the onions, since my kids won't eat them. 

Now, to make the cream soup. I took about 2 cup servings of the soup broth from the crock and poured it into a small stove-top pot. I turned the heat onto low-medium. In a small bowl, I put 1 tbsp of the corn starch and 2 tbsp of cold water and mixed with a fork until mixed well. Pour this into the pot and stir with a whisk. Note that this will thicken the soup quickly, so keep stirring and be sure the heat is not high. Once thickened, I poured about 1/4 cup of the dairy free milk into the mix and let it heat for another minute. Mix in some of the chicken pieces. 

This results in a tasty chicken soup, thickened by the starch and given that cream color by the alternative milk. 

A couple of notes ... 

• First, this is easy to freeze too. If you like the basic soup, freeze it in portions, like in ice cube trays, for example. 
• Second - if you don't remove the skins, you'll need to take the added step of cooling the broth and removing some of the fat.
• Last, if your child is a picky eater, this is great way to sneak them in. Carrots, celery, mushrooms, potatoes, rice, etc. You can make just about cream of anything. Chopping into small pieces or even blending a veggie to get it in is possible.

I hope you give this dairy free cream of chicken soup recipe a try! Happy eating.