Squash, potato and chicken soup with croutons and cheese
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Filed under Healthy veggies; My recipes; Poultry; cheese, chicken, potatoes, Superb soups
When I cooked squash and potato soup in the past, I went by a 1:2 ratio, that is, one part squash for two parts of potatoes. Like, if I had a quarter of a kilo of squash that means half a kilo of potatoes should go with it. The rationale behind the 1:2 ratio was the potato starch. I like my squash soup to be thick so I used more potatoes. The drawback, of course, was that the soup was paler than I’d like and the flavor — and sweetness — of the squash was not that pronounced.
A few days ago, I decided on a different technique — equal amounts of squash and potatoes and less broth. It worked. It was more of a squash soup rather than a potato soup. And to make the very thick soup even more filling, I added sliced chicken breast meat (I boiled two chicken breasts to make the broth) and croutons and topped it all with grated cheese before serving. My family loved it.
Serves 6 to 8.
Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts (with the bones for better flavor), about 800 grams
1 k. of squash (kalabasa)
1 k. of potatoes
6 to 8 c. of chicken broth
2 tbsps. of butter
1 large onion, chopped
croutons
grated cheese
Boil, broil or steam the chicken breasts. Cool, debone and cut the meat into thin slices.
Cut off the skin of the squash, scoop out the seeds and cut the flesh into fairly small pieces, about 1-inch cubes, for faster cooking. Peel the potatoes and cut similarly.
Melt the butter in a small pan. Over low heat, cook the onion until soft. This takes about 10 minutes with occasional stirring. I know that 10 minutes might sound like a long time to spend on an onion but, believe me, it’s worth the trouble. When the onion is soft, turn off the heat.
While the onion sweats in the pan, in a large pot, heat the chicken broth. Add the squash and potatoes, cover and simmer until they turn mushy. This will take anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes depending on how young or mature your vegetables are.
When the squash and potatoes are done, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and place in the blender or food processor (you can also mash them with a fork). Add about 2 cups of broth and the onion with the butter. Process until smooth. Pour the pureed vegetables back into the pot of broth. Season with salt and pepper. Reheat until bubbly.
To serve, ladle the thick soup into soup bowls. Place 3 to 4 chicken slices. Add croutons. Top with grated cheese.
Note: It is 1.44 p.m. of April 7 as I write this recipe. It will be published as a future post and will go live at 7.40 a.m. on Black Saturday, April 11. I will be on the plane en route to Manila by the time this entry goes live. Catch you all later.
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[...] yesterday in my food blog, I learned a new one. I recently posted a recipe that I called “Squash, potato and chicken soup with croutons and cheese.” In the comment thread, a regular reader, Natz, shared the following story. This is a slightly [...]
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I always loved Squash soup. I always remember my mom cooking this when I was a kid though her recipe was more traditional.
This seems to be an easy recipe.I cannot wait to try it.
I am a follower of your food blog.
More Power.
Thank You
I think you have a typo there in the quantity of potatoes? You said it’s same ratio so I assume potatoes should also be 1 kg?
You’re right! 1 gram LOL that won’t work at all. I’ll edit it. Thanks.
Hi!Can I freeze for future use? Thanks!
I’m not sure about that.
Squash soups are particularly nourishing during cold seasons. I like to make mine starting with frying bacon and then adding the onions and the broth, the vegetables and then the adding cream. Admittedly mine is a heavy soup meant to be a meal in itself. And I don’t know if adding cream would suite many Filipino tastebuds. (I however would urged Filipinos to give it a try) Served with bread, topped with croutons and some sprouts.
If thickness, sweetness & colour is what you’d like, I would suggest substituting the potatoes for sweet potatoes or yams. The combination of squash and sweet potatoes is quite traditional in western societies, most especially during halloween season when root vegetables are served. And the sweet potatoes or yams will not overpower the taste of the squash.
Hello Ms. Connie,
I have tried and enjoyed many recipes from your site and to say that everyone has enjoyed each and every one of your recipes would be an understatement. Your recipes have somewhat made it to our list of family favorites being served not only for everyday meals but for every special occasion.
This particular recipe though stired some controversy and additional “research” before I was able to convince my mother, now 76 years old, to try it.
It is really a humorous story:
After announcing that I would be trying your soup for lunch, my mom suddenly warned me and said that her mother “NEVER” combined KALABASA and CHICKEN together in the same dish because it causes KETONG (leprosy).
I of course questioned her how could this be true; chicken and squash being a traditional western combination either served individually in the same meal or literally cooked together. I laughed and dismissed it as “an old wive’s tale”. My dad hearing our discussion told me that there could be truth to these “tales” and that westerners have yet to learn more about superstition and eastern ways.
I couldn’t believe that my parents- both being highly educated could even consider believing in something like this. I even reminded tham of our roasted chicken and pumpkin pie dinners in the USA.
The funny thing about it was that I too suddenly wondered if there could be truth to this “old wives tale”.
I spent literally the whole morning googling about chicken and kalabasa combinations and found nothing about it causing any skin diseases. I was hoping to maybe find the origins of the belief but found nothing on the subject matter.
Instead, I found 100’s of thousands of recipes with chicken and squash combination.
This, and my experience that you have consistently given us recipes that are always delicious further convinced me to go on with this recipe. Because I like my soup somewhat chunky, I left some of the potatoes and squash unprocessed. I decided to put in more chicken chunks, I also fried a few sliced of bacon till crisp and crumbled these on top of the soup.
I served the soup with slightly toasted bread on the side and that was a full meal in itself!
It was so good that there were no more discusions about the chicken-kalabasa combination causing ketong. Everyone just enjoyed the soup.
I plan to put the soup in a bread bowl for added presentaion next time.
Leprosy? Wow, and I thought I’ve heard them all. You might want to read Causes of the common cold and old wives’ tales. The comments are hilarious.
I’m reminded of my own mom who insisted that one has to fry garlic first and followed by onions – with the sort of tone that if this golden rule is broken, all hell would break loose.. I’ve since broken that rule millions of times with delicious results much to my mother’s astonishment and chagrin.
Hehehe I heard that one too. Surprisingly, not from oldies in my family but from high school classmates who were following their mothers’ instructions.