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Loaded with sweet and savory vegetables, tasty chicken, buckwheat, and fresh dill, my Buckwheat Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato is a perfect winter warm up! Best of all, it’s a gluten free soup the whole family will love!
Cooking for Gluten-Free Friends – Buckwheat Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato
If you entertain at home, it’s important to take the dietary restrictions for your guests into account. Doing so is appreciated by my friends and has stretched me as a cook.
Taking on the challenge of cooking vegetarian, kosher, vegan, or gluten-free meals has nudged me to try new ingredients and cooking techniques. That’s how I discovered buckwheat, a grain I’d never used before.
I was planning to have two girlfriends over for lunch after Christmas, one of whom can’t eat gluten, and thought I’d make a one of the soups from the New England Soup Factory Cookbook. Every recipe in it is a winner but one of my favorites is the Sweet Potato, Chicken, and Barley soup. It’s always a big hit.
But barley has gluten, so I needed to find something to use in its place. Initially, I considered quinoa but it’s too delicate for such a hearty soup. I needed a grain that was larger and a little chewy. Buckwheat ticked off all those boxes.
Buckwheat or Barley: Choose Your Own Adventure
The only problem with buckwheat was finding it. My local grocery stores didn’t have any in stock.
I ended up borrowing some from my gluten-free friend but you can also purchase buckwheat online. Now that I’ve used it, I’m going to get a supply of my own. I can think of so many uses for this gluten-free grain!
As I said, the original recipe uses barley. If gluten free isn’t an issue for you, you can substitute the same amount of barley for the buckwheat it the recipe. It’s delicious, cooks up just the same way, and easy to find in most supermarkets.
Buckwheat Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato – A Healthy, Hearty Winter Warm-Up
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve made this soup but it’s a lot. It’s one of those recipes I pull out every winter and never get tired of.
On the surface, it’s just looks like your basic chicken and root vegetable soup. But there’s a lot of surprising deliciousness in this recipe that lifts it way beyond basic. And besides being good, it’s really good for you.
Buckwheat Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato has a TON of vegetables. Of course, you’ll find sweet potatoes in it but it also includes lots of carrots, celery, onions, and parsnips. Those parsnips are the most surprising ingredient on the list.
The parsnips are grated, so they kind of “melt into” the soup. It adds a touch of sweetness and thickens the soup quite a bit. Between the parsnips and the buckwheat, it’s really more like a stew than a soup. In the winter, a hearty, meal-in-a-bowl soup is just perfect.
Two Ingredients for a Surprisingly Favorful Finish
I love soup with root vegetables but they do have a tendency taste pretty similar. Not so for Buckwheat Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato! This recipe includes two ingredients added at the finish which really lift the flavor.
At the very end, this recipe calls for the addition of some balsamic vinegar. It’s not a lot but that little touch of tartness adds a lot to the flavor profile. So does the addition of lots and lots of fresh chopped dill.
If you can’t get fresh dill, then you can add a tablespoon of dried dill in the last five minutes of cooking, but fresh will be better. And it looks pretty too. Whether you use fresh or dried, the dill makes a big difference. Do NOT skip the dill!
A Couple of Tips
Buckwheat Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato is really flavorful so you don’t need to add a ton of salt. Start with a teaspoon of kosher salt for the whole pot, then taste and adjust as needed. If you’re trying to stick to a lower salt diet, this is a great recipe.
This recipe makes a LOT of soup. I love that because I usually make a pot on Sunday and have it for lunch all during the week. However, if you’re not feeding a crowd or don’t like leftovers, you might want to half the recipe.
Another option is to freeze the extra. It will store in the freezer for up to 3 months. However, you might want to add the dill and balsamic vinegar when you reheat it, not during the initial preparation.
If at all possible, use homemade stock for this recipe. Or really, for any soup you make at home. It always tastes best. If you’re not in the habit of making your own stock, this soup will give you the chance to start!
When you’re prepping the veggies, take the onion tops and ends, celery ends, and peels from the carrots, parsnips, and potatoes and put them in the freezer. The next time you’ve got a chicken carcass or bones, toss them into a pot with the frozen veggies, cover with water, bring to a boil, and let them simmer for an hour or so. Then drain the liquid and skim off the fat. Making your own stock is easy and a good way to keep food from going to waste.
A hot bowl of Buckwheat Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato is the ideal lunch or dinner for chilly winter weather. Make a pot this week!
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Buckwheat Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 2 T olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 4 medium carrots, peeled and diced
- 3 medium parsnips, peeled and grated
- 1 cup uncooked buckwheat (can substitute barley – note that barley is NOT gluten free)
- 10 cups chicken stock
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
- 3 cups cooked chicken, chopped
- ½ bunch fresh dill (see recipe post if using dried)
- 1 T balsamic vinegar
- Kosher salt to taste
- Fresh ground pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat oil in very large, heavy bottomed stock pot over medium-high. Add onions, carrots celery, and garlic to pot. Cook for five minutes, stirring often. Onions should be fairly soft and somewhat translucent.
- Add chicken stock, buckwheat (or barley), parsnips, and bay leaves to pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 25 minutes.
- Add sweet potatoes and chicken. Simmer for an additional 15-20 minutes, until sweet potatoes are soft.
- Remove soup from heat. Remove bay leaves. Stir in vinegar, dill, salt and pepper to taste.
