Turkey (or Chicken) Soup With Lemon and Rice

Strip the chicken from the rotisserie chicken. Save the meat and put all the remainder of the carcass including all the skin, bones, juices, etc, into a pot along with an onion (including skin), garlic, carrots, celery, spices, whatever and simmer for two hours. Strain and add as much of the chicken and rice as you want to the soup.. You can also add a heaping teaspoon of chicken bouillon to deepen the flavor

Cooking cooked turkey for 10-15 minutes would toughen it unless it's frozen. I like to put shredded cooked turkey or chicken in the bottom of each bowl and pour hot broth over it--not re-cooking it at all.

I do a chicken soup very similar to this. I make my own stock, and utilize every part of the chicken (except the skin). It is one of my ultimate comfort foods. I even have friends asking for it when they get sick. I have no scientific data to back it up, but I think it cures cancer.

I do a few things different. I use fresh ginger and lemon grass. If you want to put a neat spin on it sub out rice and use farro. Cook it separately, and add it in the end after it's off the burner.

Leeks, celery, and garlic benefit from a little sauté before adding the liquid. Add a pinch of thyme Zucchini adds benign vegetable material, but not in season in the winter. I added 1/2 pound of spinach at the end to boost nutrition and make this a one-dish dinner.

I added a few slivers of fresh peeled ginger also (West Indian cure all) and since I'd no zucchini on hand, added fresh carrot curls, frozen green peas, and a generous hand full of fresh chopped escarole near the end of the simmering time. Substituted fresh flat leaf parsley for the cilantro since one member of the family thinks it tastes like soap.

Excellent soup. Made it with broccoli and lime instead of zucchini and lemon. Delicious with Christmas leftover turkey.

This is a simple, basic and wonderful brothy soup. I do omit the chicken/turkey most of the time and make it just a vegetable soup, adding broccoli and caulifower, pea pods, mushrooms, even diced red bell pepper, whatever vegetables I have on hand, and sometimes add chopped up tomato. Generally I start the process with sauteing pancetta in a sprits of EVOO, then add the aromatic vegetables, then the broth. And often just leave out the rice. A whol different recipe but basically much the same.

Very excited to leave our first comment ever after loads of NYT recipes! Delicious; Just what the doctor ordered. For a deeper flavour profile, I threw in about 2 inches of fresh grated ginger (like others have suggested), 4 carrots (sliced), and two fennel roots chopped (plus leaves). Super tasty.

I followed the recipe closely but with the following "cheats"

A) reconstituted chicken stock concentrate (always in my fridge ... adjust for its saltiness)

B) packaged frozen grilled and sliced chicken breast (warmed before adding)

The flavors were more complex than I expected. As a bonus, my wife loved it.

A hit.