Cream Cheese Chicken Vegetable Soup

Spring break means DeKalb empties out and the dining hall cuts its hours and the dorm gets very quiet. Most people go somewhere warm or go home. I went home to Oak Lawn for five days — slept in my old twin bed under the same blue comforter I have had since seventh grade, ate Patty's cooking, let Steve ask me exactly zero questions about my feelings and exactly twelve questions about my car's oil change schedule. It was good. It was exactly what I needed.

Patty made her chicken and dumplings the first night, the kind with the flat dropped dumplings that soak up the broth and get thick and pillowy. She makes it when people need comfort — it was the first thing she made after Jess died, and before that after Dziadek Wally had his hip surgery, and before that whenever anyone in the family was having a hard time. I ate two bowls and did not talk much and she let me not talk, which is one of the things Patty does best.

Steve drove me around Oak Lawn on Saturday in the truck for no particular reason. We went to the hardware store. He bought caulk. I looked at the paint samples for ten minutes because I always have. He did not ask how I was doing; he bought me a coffee from the McDonald's drive-through. That is Steve. He paid for the coffee and said "You doing alright?" and I said "Yeah, Dad" and that was the whole conversation and it was enough. It was everything, actually.

I drove back to DeKalb on Sunday with a container of leftover chicken and dumplings in the passenger seat. Patty packed it in a Tupperware that used to have a blue lid but now has a red one because the blue one melted in the dishwasher in 2009 and she just replaced the lid. I ate the leftovers Monday and Tuesday, reheated in the dorm microwave, and it still tasted like home — a little less pillowy, but still exactly right.

That Tuesday, reheating the last of Patty’s chicken and dumplings in the microwave, I thought about how soup is the thing she always reaches for when she doesn’t know what else to do — and how it always turns out to be exactly right. I’m not in Oak Lawn this week, and I don’t have her recipe, but I wanted that same feeling: something warm and a little thick, something that fills the whole room when it’s cooking. This cream cheese chicken vegetable soup is what I came up with, and it did the job.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 medium carrots, sliced into rounds
3 stalks celery, sliced
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
Salt and black pepper to taste
8 oz full-fat cream cheese, cut into cubes and softened to room temperature
1 cup frozen peas
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Instructions

Brown the chicken. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper, then add to the pot in a single layer. Cook 4—5 minutes, stirring once, until lightly golden. Transfer to a plate and set aside. The chicken does not need to be cooked through at this stage.
Soften the aromatics. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion and celery to the same pot and cook, stirring occasionally, for 4—5 minutes until softened. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Build the base. Add carrots, potatoes, chicken broth, thyme, rosemary, and onion powder. Stir to combine. Return the browned chicken and any accumulated juices to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer.
Simmer until tender. Cover partially and cook 20—25 minutes, until potatoes are fork-tender and chicken is cooked through.
Add the cream cheese. Reduce heat to low. Add softened cream cheese cubes a few at a time, stirring constantly and letting each addition melt fully before adding more. This takes patience — about 3—4 minutes — but it gives the broth its thick, velvety body.
Finish and season. Stir in frozen peas and cook 2 minutes more until heated through. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. Stir in fresh parsley just before serving.
Serve. Ladle into deep bowls. Good with crusty bread or biscuits alongside. Reheats beautifully the next day — add a splash of broth if it thickens too much in the fridge.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cream Cheese Chicken Vegetable Soup — The Bowl That Means You’re Home