North African Chicken Soup

Wow! I love, love, love this easy North African chicken soup recipe and its complex flavors that come together in a very short time. I made a couple of little swaps to the recipe, but you can go straight for efficient and still be super pleased with yourself.

I roasted chicken thighs per the Tuscan-Style Sautéed Chicken recipe, using oregano in place of rosemary. I used some of the moist, fragrant chicken for this recipe and saved the remainder for another meal. I also skimmed the fat from the cooking juices and used them to enrich a vegetable broth I already had started, though really, it would work just fine to use a rotisserie chicken and store-bought broth if you’re pressed for time on a weeknight. I used 2 shallots in place of the onion, Aleppo pepper instead of chili flakes, and one of my own large preserved lemons, and I felt that the seasoning was perfect. (Note to self: Time to start another batch of preserved lemons.)

I used rinsed quinoa (the same amount as the couscous) because I prefer the mouthfeel of quinoa. One thing I might do the next time I make this recipe is to chop my tinned tomatoes a bit before adding them if the pieces look a little large, but really there isn’t anything I would change, except to make this more often. This recipe is a great one for the chicken soup arsenal, with just the right amount of tang and heat. It generously serves two for lunch or even dinner but easily could be a first course in smaller servings. You also could extend it on the fly by adding more chicken or more stock, depending on what you have on hand.

I liked reading this North African chicken soup recipe so much that I couldn’t bring myself to make it for 2 servings. I doubled the recipe, in exactly the same proportions, and it made enough for at least 6, maybe 8 servings. The whole process of prepping and cooking took less than an hour.

I had some soup right way and enjoyed every bit of it. This soup is a sinus clearer. Needless to say, my husband stayed far away and I could find only one other person who would share. I’m not a couscous fan, but this soup needed that. And the preserved lemon was a perfect crunchy tidbit. As for tasting better the next day, the couscous had soaked up most of the liquid—it was very soft but not unpleasant. I also thinned the soup down with more chicken broth the second day, and it was still quite spicy but with a much more pronounced lemon flavor—too lemony. Maybe adding it at the last minute is the answer?

This is the type of recipe we appreciate making for weeknight meals—ingredients on hand, everything comes together in less than a half an hour, and the result is much greater than the sum of its parts. We doubled the North African chicken soup recipe, using good-quality, store-bought stock. The spices are balanced, the soup is hearty, and we certainly will make this again, next time with the preserved lemon (which we could not easily find the first time we made it, but have since located it in a Middle Eastern grocery store). Also, the next time we make this recipe, we will add a big handful of greens.

This North African chicken soup recipe delivers on all counts—flavor, texture, and nutrition. It was so easy to make and certainly is a meal in itself. I couldn’t find ras el hanout in my little town here. So I used this Moroccan spice rub recipe and I actually ended up making a Moroccan roast chicken with the same rub. I used some white meat to make the soup and also threw the spice mixture into the soup. I made a slow-cooker chicken stock https://leitesculinaria.com/84088/recipes-slow-cooker-chicken-stock.html.

I found that I could reduce the amount of quinoa—perhaps 3 tablespoons would be adequate. I kept the leftovers for lunch the next day, and the flavors certainly deepened, however the soup was more like a stew as the quinoa had absorbed most of the liquid overnight. I served it with a nice salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions in a lemon and cumin vinaigrette.

I loved this North African chicken soup recipe. There was a very gentle amount of heat from the chiles, not enough to call the recipe hot by any means, but just enough for a pleasant warmth. I had to make a few modifications to the recipe to accommodate my dietary needs and the ingredients I had on hand.

The ras el hanout, an insanely complex and and delicious blend of spices, is the real star. I only looked in one supermarket and couldn’t find the blend, so I dug into my cookbooks and made my own. (I used the recipe in Mourad). The soup had a wonderful flavor that was hard to pin down. The amount of chicken in the recipe is pretty small, so I added a bit more than called for. I used chicken thighs instead of breast meat because I already had them on hand. Because I have to eat gluten-free, couscous is out of the question, so I used cooked millet instead, which I find makes a nice substitute.

We had enough to serve 2 with leftovers for lunch the next day. The flavor was even better the next day—the seasoning seemed to come through quite a bit more. The millet had continued to swell and thickened the whole soup. What I would do next time is add the millet to each individual serving in the bowl, and, for the leftovers, store the millet and the soup separately.