The Secret To Good Chicken Soup: Skip The Breasts And Grab This Instead

A good chicken soup often starts with chicken breasts, but a great chicken soup goes further. Many home cooks use chicken breasts in their recipes because these stay well-stocked at the store and are quick to cook, but there are better choices for a slow-cooked dish like soup. Using a whole bird brings more flavor and can even save you money, and you can do it easily by taking a cue from chef Alex Guarnaschelli.

In a video on Instagram account, Guarnaschelli demonstrates how to make a chicken soup by cooking a whole bird in the pot alongside the standard ingredients of celery, onions, and carrots. By using an entire chicken instead of its parts or just the lean breasts, you get the best of both worlds. Enjoy tender white meat with the full flavor and fat from the dark meat and bones. Plus, Guarnaschelli notes in the video that this is a great recipe for those who don't like handling raw meat, as there's no dicing or cutting of raw chicken parts. (Note that you'll still need to handle the chicken if you want to remove any giblets inside.)

Guarnaschelli doesn't season the chicken before it cooks, but she avoids making bland poached chicken by flavoring the water with bouillon cubes, bay leaves, salt, and clove. Cooking this soup can take anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 ½ hours depending on the chicken's size. Either way, the bird should cook until it's 165 degrees Fahrenheit internally. And one of the major advantages of using the whole chicken? You don't have to worry about overcooking chicken breasts and ending up with tough meat.

This hack isn't just delicious — it's economical. A whole chicken can cost less than buying a pack of breasts because stores often sell the bird at a comparably lower price per pound, and it can be even cheaper with the giblets removed. You also get more value for your money because you can use an entire chicken for many different meals. Keep the bones and roast them to make a bone broth, use any leftover shredded meat for tacos, chicken salad, or sandwiches, or save parts to use in other recipes — like smothered whole chicken wings.

Additionally, we all know the fat content in meat imparts more flavor, but so does an overlooked protein — myoglobin. It gives meat its red color and brings oxygen to the muscles, so areas of the body that see more movement have more myoglobin, like the chicken thighs and legs. These well-used muscles also have more enzymes that naturally produce flavor. Whether you elevate your chicken soup with white wine or toss in egg noodles for more bite, choosing a whole bird at the grocery store pays off in multiple ways.