Chicken Potato Chowder
Chicken and Potatoes
This chicken potato chowder is hearty and healthy. The best part is that you get to add seasonings to your heart’s content. Use the seasonings your family likes and skip the ones they’d rather do without. You can add more cheese – or less.
Stock for the chowder
The best way to make this is to use your own stock. That means you cook a chicken – or parts of a chicken – in water until it’s tender. Debone the chicken and save the broth (stock). You can re-cook the bones and the fat to get more flavor, broth, and color if you’d like. If you don’t have any chicken stock of your own, you can use store-bought chicken broth, but it won’t be as hearty. For this recipe, you can change up the chicken broth and milk (or cream). If you want it creamier, use more milk. If you want it a little lighter, use more broth. But you’ll want both milk (and cream) and broth to make this recipe.
For the chicken, you can use white, dark, or both meats. Dark meat is more tender and give more flavor – but I realize some folks prefer white meat. You get to choose!
Switch up the amount of vegetables if you’d like; you can even add corn to the mix, which I’ve done sometimes. It adds more starch and more color.
If you’re cooking for hard-working men, they’ll probably like the added corn. If you’re cooking for women who prefer a lighter side, then skip the corn.These photos are from a chowder I made without corn.
Chicken potato chowder
Because this chowder is loaded with potatoes, you might want to skip serving crackers with it. However, if you have family members like I do who believe in all-things-crackers when it comes to soup or chowder, then have at it.
This chowder has all the basic food groups except fruit. You don’t need to measure your vegetables. Just peel, chop, and dice until it looks right. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we do! Here’s the recipe.
The recipe
Chicken Potato Chowder
Ingredients
- 5 Tbsp. butter
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 1 clove garlic diced
- 2 cups chopped carrots
- 1/2-3/4 cups diced celery more if it's a family favorite and less if it's not
- 2 - 3 cups peeled diced potatoes
- 1 cup corn
- 2 teaspoons thyme
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 1/2 cups chicken broth OR more if you decide to add less milk
- 2 1/2 cups milk OR cream
- 2 cups cooked chopped chicken - white, dark, or both
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese about 4 oz.
Instructions
- Melt butter in a kettle
- Saute garlic clove, celery, onion, and carrots in butter - about 3-5 minutes
- Add chicken broth and potatoes, then add thyme, salt and pepper
- Cook until potatoes are tender then add corn (optional)
- Add flour and stir until smooth
- Add milk and mix together well
- Heat on medium heat, stirring until the sauce thickens (this can take several minutes)
- Add chicken and then add cheese, stirring until the cheese is melted
- Serve and enjoy!
- OPTIONAL: You can saute and cook all the vegetables and make your white sauce in a separate kettle, then combine the two before adding the cheese. You'll have two kettles to wash instead of one, but you can be working on both at the same time.
This recipe is a repost from several years ago. It’s a wonderful chowder to serve during cool fall days and blustery winter days.
