Saturday, January 30, 2010

Cheesy Chicken Chowder:

From page 33 of Taste of Home's Prize Winning Recipes cookbook.

3 cups chicken broth
2 cups diced, peeled potatoes
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced onion
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
2 cups milk
2 cups grated cheese
2 cups diced, cooked chicken

In a 4 quart saucepan bring chicken broth to a boil.
Reduce heat; add potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, salt and pepper.
Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a medium saucepan; add flour and mix well.
Gradually stir in milk; cook over low heat until slightly thickened.
Stir in cheese and cook until melted.

Add cheese mixture to broth and add chicken.
Cook and stir over low heat until heated through.

Yield: 6-8 servings.

*I didn't add celery but did add a lot more onion. Broccoli would be a good add to this as would bacon. It's so good!

3 comments:

bequi said...

I wanted to update my comment.

I am unable to leave a recipe alone. Since it was late on a Sunday and I still hadn't made dinner, I decided to try this recipe (Thanks to your referral on facebook).

Also, since it was Sunday, I went with what I had on hand.

So, the vegetables I had were: potatoes, frozen corn, 1/5 of an onion, and a crown of broccoli. I also only had 3 frozen chicken tenderloins left, so I made a smaller batch of this. I only used 1 can of chicken broth, 2 small potatoes, and the rest of my veggies. I added some garlic powder and onion powder to the milk. I used the last of our cheese, a little mozzarella and a little colby jack.

This was SOOOOO good! My whole family loved it, and the 3 year-old kept saying, "I LOVE chowder!" I saved a little bit to feed the baby tomorrow, since all the veggies are so soft. I love that the potatoes took on the flavor of the chicken broth.

Two notes I'd like to make, when you're mixing your flour with the melted butter, it's a good idea to let the flour get a little brown. That will cook out the flour flavor you sometimes get when you use flour as a thickening agent. Also, if you boil your chicken in salt water and then refrigerate it before you chop it, it stays juicier. When you cut it while it's hot, the juice steams out of it.

Anyway, the whole process took about 20 minutes. I chopped the veggies while I brought the broth to a boil to save time. And it was SO easy and SO delicious, I will definitely be making this regularly!

Laura said...

Last night when I made it I used a full carton of chicken broth (5 cups?)instead of the 3 cups and it still turned out plenty thick.

The versatility of this recipe makes me giddy.

Tressa Ray said...

Made this last night. It was so absolutely amazing, and I can't wait to eat leftovers again today!