Easy Chicken or Turkey Soup Recipe With Vegetables

QUICK SUMMARY

Mama Z’s easy chicken or turkey soup starts with a whole bird simmered in water with onions, celery, carrots, bay leaves, parsley and a bouquet garni, then the meat is shredded and returned to the pot with tomatoes, mixed vegetables and your choice of brown rice, potatoes, brown rice pasta or rice and millet ramen. It takes about 10 minutes of prep and two and a half hours of mostly hands-off simmering.

Herbs carry the flavor so you can go light on salt, and simmering the bones gives you a real homemade broth. It is a flexible, budget-friendly family meal that works with chicken or turkey and whatever vegetables you have.

There is something about a pot of chicken soup on the stove that says home. This is Mama Z’s simple, from-scratch version, a warm family meal that stretches one bird into several bowls.

You do not need boxed broth or a long ingredient list. A whole chicken or turkey, a few vegetables, fresh parsley and a little bag of dried herbs do the work, and you can finish the pot with rice, potatoes, pasta or ramen depending on what your family likes best.

Easy Chicken or Turkey Soup Recipe

This recipe works in two simple stages. First, the bird simmers with aromatics and herbs to make the broth; then you shred the meat, add tomatoes, vegetables and your starch, and let everything finish together.

Chicken or Turkey Soup Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Author Mama Z

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Servings

2x4x6x

Ingredients

• 1 organic AND free range chicken OR turkey, chopped
• Purified OR distilled water, to cover the meat
• 3 small organic onions, chopped OR 3 tablespoons organic dried minced onions
• 2 organic celery ribs, finely diced
• 2 organic carrots, finely diced
• 2 organic bay leaves
• 4 sprigs organic parsley
• 3 tablespoons organic Bouquet Garni, divided into 2 reusable tea bags
• 1 teaspoon Vegetable Bouillon Seasoning Mix
• 1 quart organic tomatoes, diced OR crushed
• 3-4 cups organic fresh vegetables of your choice OR frozen mixed veggies, carrots, peas, etc.*
• sea salt
• organic white pepper, ground
• 1 cup organic brown basmati rice OR 3 cups organic raw diced potatoes OR 3 cups brown rice pasta OR 2-3 cakes organic brown rice and millet ramen*

Supplies

• Soup pot
• Reusable tea bags

Instructions

 

• Place the cut-up chicken or turkey in a soup pot and cover it with purified or distilled water. Add the onions, celery, carrots, bay leaves, parsley, 1 tea bag of Bouquet Garni, and bouillon. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 1 hour.
• Remove the Bouquet Garni and chicken from the pot and shred the meat from the bones. Place the meat back in the pot and add the second Bouquet Garni teabag, tomatoes, veggies, and salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the Bouquet Garni and bay leaves. Add the rice and let it cook for 30 more minutes. Enjoy!

Notes

*If using frozen vegetables, add them during the last 10-15 minutes of cooking. 

**If using rice or raw potatoes, add during the last 30-40 minutes of cooking. If using pasta, cook before, toss it with olive oil, keep in a separate pot, and add to the bowls right before serving.

Tips for the Best Pot of Soup

A few small details make a big difference in how this soup turns out.

• Use reusable tea bags for the herbs. Splitting the bouquet garni into two bags means you get a fresh round of herb flavor after the meat goes back in, and you can lift the herbs out without fishing for leaves.
• Remember the bay leaves. Pull them out with the second herb bag before you add the rice; they are for flavor, not for eating.
• Time your vegetables. Frozen vegetables only need the last 10 to 15 minutes of cooking, so they stay bright instead of turning to mush.
• Time your starch. Rice and raw potatoes go in for the last 30 to 40 minutes.
• Cook pasta separately. Brown rice pasta soaks up broth and softens fast, so cook it in its own pot, toss it with a little olive oil, and add it to each bowl right before serving.
• Salt at the end. Taste the finished soup, then season with a good sea salt such as Colima sea salt or pink Himalayan salt and a pinch of white pepper.

Easy Variations

This soup is meant to be flexible. Here are a few ways to make it your own without changing what makes it work.

Chicken or Turkey

The recipe works the same with either bird, so use whichever you have on hand. Cut it into pieces so it fits the pot and is covered by the water.

Pick Your Starch

The card gives you four options: organic brown basmati rice, raw diced potatoes, brown rice pasta, or cakes of organic brown rice and millet ramen. Rice and potatoes make the soup thick and filling, and ramen turns it into a quick noodle bowl.

If you love the noodle version, our healthy vegetable ramen noodle soup is a meatless cousin of this recipe that comes together in about 20 minutes.

Use What You Have

Frozen mixed vegetables, carrots and peas are the easiest choice, but this is a wonderful place to use up fresh garden produce or leftover vegetables. Green beans, zucchini, spinach and kale all fit right in.

Need a Shortcut?

If you are short on time, you can replace some of the water with a good organic boxed broth. You will lose a little of the homemade character, but it is still a nourishing bowl of soup.

For a long-simmered, collagen-rich broth that sits on the stove for hours, see our chicken and rice dinner with bone broth soup.

Why These Ingredients Matter

Chicken soup has long been the comfort food people reach for when someone is sick, and researchers have been curious about why. In a 2000 laboratory study, researchers in Nebraska found that a traditional homemade chicken soup slowed the movement of neutrophils, the white blood cells that drive inflammation, and suggested a mild anti-inflammatory effect as one reason soup helps with cold symptoms (1).

More recent work points to compounds in the broth itself. In a 2022 study, chicken broth and its histidine dipeptides (carnosine and anserine) improved white blood cell counts, antibody levels and other immune markers in immune-suppressed mice (2).

The Bones and the Broth

Simmering the whole bird pulls amino acids and minerals out of the bones and into the pot. A 2025 review from Mayo Clinic researchers found that bone broth provides glutamine, glycine, proline, histidine and arginine along with calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and zinc, nutrients that animal and human studies link to a stronger gut barrier and less intestinal inflammation (3).

Our soup simmers for about two and a half hours in total, not the all-day simmer of a classic bone broth, so think of it as a lighter, everyday version of that same idea.

Herbs Instead of Extra Salt

The bouquet garni, bay leaves and fresh parsley also help you use less salt. A 2026 review of herb and spice research found that people grew to like a reduced-salt soup more over repeated tastings when it was seasoned with herbs and spices, while the same low-salt soup without them gained no such appeal (4).

That is the idea behind this recipe: let the herbs carry the flavor and add salt to taste at the end. If you want to learn how to swap ingredients like this in your own family recipes, grab our DIY recipe makeover guide.

Simple Food, Shared Together

A pot of soup is humble food, and that is part of its beauty. Scripture reminds us that what matters most at the table is not how fancy the meal is:

“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” (Proverbs 15:17)

We pray this soup brings your family around the table and nourishes the body God gave you. For more on living out Biblical health every day, visit us at BibleHealth.com.

Keep reading: Chicken and Rice Dinner + Bone Broth Soup for Immune Support · Lentil Kale Soup Recipe With Essential Oils · Turkey Brine Recipe With Herbs, Honey & Sea Salt