Name: Chicken Cabbage Soup {Gluten Free, Slow Cooker Recipe}
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 270 min
Total time: 280 min
Ingredients: 6 cups water; 3 teaspoons chicken bouillon (see note); 1 teaspoon celery seed (optional); 1 teaspoon onion powder; 1 teaspoon parsley; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon black pepper; 2 pounds boneless chicken thighs (about 4, see note); 1 ½ cups diced onions (about 1 medium onion); 2 cups diced carrots (about 3-4 large carrots); 2 cups diced celery (about 2 large stalks); 1 - 2 cups cooked and mashed winter squash (optional); 6-8 cups chopped cabbage (about 1/2 large or 1 small head)

This slow cooker chicken cabbage soup is gluten free and packed full of flavor. With all the flavors chicken noodle soup, only with cabbage instead of noodles. The chicken and veggies are juicy and tender, the broth is warm and inviting.

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Hello, my friends!

How are you?

I spent the first part of my week helping my computer recover from a nasty virus. And I’m happy to report that it seems to be working again.

So glad to be here to share this delicious chicken cabbage soup with you.

This recipe was born out of necessity.

One day when I was in the middle of making chicken noodle soup, I remembered that my parents (who live 5 minutes away) were coming for dinner. My dad has celiac so he can’t have regular noodles and I didn’t have any gluten free ones. So I decided to just throw in some chopped cabbage and see what happened.

I actually think I was planning on adding noodles to some of the soup for the kiddos but somehow spaced it.

So I served the chicken noodle soup sans noodles and no one missed them. The whole pot of soup disappeared. And it has been requested many times since.

I love the flavor of this soup plus these two things about the recipe

First off I love that it is a slow cooker recipe.

Can we just take a moment to herald the invention of the slow cooker?

Oh my goodness. It has saved me on many busy days when I knew I would not have time to make dinner.

And not only that, this is a prep and dump kind of a slow cooker recipe. Stick it in, walk away. Don’t forget to turn it on. Um, anyone else done that?

Don’t be alarmed if the cabbage doesn’t all fit under the liquid when you put it in. It will cook down with everything else and be delicious.

The cooking time depends on your slow cooker, but in my old 7-quart oval cooker it takes right around 4 1/2 hours on LOW.

After it’s cooked, all that’s left to do is shred the chicken and it’s ready to serve.

Love these kinds of recipes.

The second thing I love that this recipe is that it’s super adaptable.

I’ve made it with chicken thighs, chicken breasts, leftover chicken or turkey or even cooked meat still on the carcasses (I’ll tell you how in a minute).

You can change up the veggies too. Once you have the base flavors down, everything else is up for grabs. I’ll give you some ideas of how we change it up below.

This is a great recipe for a “clean out the fridge” kind of day. Saggy baggy vegetables work great. It all cooks together and comes out delicious.

Okay let’s talk variations

I prefer the flavor of dark meat in this soup. I’ve made it with chicken breasts and they work in a pinch, but white meat tends to dry out unless cooked for exactly the right amount of time. Dark meat is much more flexible with overcooking making it the perfect fit for slow cooker recipes.

The easiest is to use boneless chicken thighs like the recipe states, but here’s another option that I use all the time too.

I’ve told you about these nut bags before. I actually own two and I’ve never used them to make nut milk yet. But they are super handy things to have around.

With one of my nut bags, I make amazingly creamy homemade ricotta. So good. And the other one is used for soups like this one.

Instead of using the chicken thighs, I will sometimes pack my nut bag with the bones and carcass from a whole chicken (like the remains from a rotisserie chicken) or turkey. I throw that in the crockpot and let it cook with everything else.

Using bone-in chicken or turkey adds tons of extra flavor to the broth (plus nutrition). But no one wants to find a lose bone in their soup. That’s where the nut bag comes in. It makes it super easy to avoid that. When it’s done just pull it out, open up the bag, pick off the meat, and discard the bones.

After using the nut bag, you can wash it by hand, throw it in the dishwasher or even put it in the laundry. After I use the bag for meat, I wash it and then dip it in a little bleach water and let it dry as an added precaution for killing bacteria.

Start saving those rotisserie chickens or Thanksgiving turkey carcasses, my friends. Pack them into freezer bags and stick them in the freezer. They freeze well for up to 6 months. The frozen carcass can be packed right into the nut bag when you’re ready to make this delicious soup.

Other vegetables that would work include turnips, zucchini, or potatoes. I really like to mash up a cooked winter squash (like butternut) and stick it in. It gives the broth a nice color and a delicious sweetness to the flavor. It would be delicious with some peas thrown in at the end too.

So many options. So many variations. Easy, adaptable, and mighty delicious. This soup really has it all. Make it, my friends.