Pressure Cooker Loaded Chicken Veggie Soup

The weeks after. That's what this is — the weeks after. The weeks where life continues because life doesn't take breaks and the construction site needs a foreman and the garden needs watering and the stove needs lighting and the soup beans need soaking and Monday is still Monday even when two boys are dead and your son heard the explosion that killed them from ten feet away.

I'm going to tell you something I haven't told the blog: I know what Clay is going through. Not the specifics — I wasn't in Afghanistan, I wasn't in a convoy, I didn't lose friends to an IED. But I know the after. I know the nightmares and the flinching and the way loud noises become threats and enclosed spaces become tombs and the world divides into before and after and the before was better and the after is what you're stuck with. I know because the mine collapse did that to me. September 12, 1991. Seventeen hours in the dark. Four men. Twenty tons of rock. I came out and I was never the same and I didn't talk about it for twenty-five years and the not-talking almost cost me my marriage and my health and my relationship with bourbon and my son is now entering the same silence from a different direction and I can see it happening and I can't stop it.

Connie sees it too. She said, on Wednesday night: "He sounded like you did after the collapse." She said it gently, the way you say something that has teeth. She's right. She heard it in my voice in 1991 and she hears it in Clay's voice in 2019 and the sound is the same: the specific flatness of a man who is alive and doesn't know what to do with the aliveness because two other men are not.

I made a meal this week that I haven't made in years: Betty's soup. Not a specific soup. Just soup. The recipe that Betty makes when someone is sick, when someone is grieving, when the world has dealt a blow and the only response is broth. Chicken broth — homemade, from a whole chicken simmered for three hours with onion and celery and carrots. Strained. Clear. Golden. Hot. No noodles. No rice. No vegetables. Just broth. Just the essence of a chicken reduced to liquid and served in a mug, not a bowl, because a mug is what you hold with both hands when your hands need something to hold.

I drank broth from a mug on Wednesday night and thought about Clay drinking — what? Water? Coffee? Whatever they give soldiers who are alive but not okay? I wish I could send him a mug of broth. I wish broth could travel seven thousand miles and arrive hot and golden and say what I can't say, which is: I know. I know the sound. I know the silence. I know the after. And the after gets better. Not soon. Not easily. But eventually. The after gets better.

Betty’s broth — the plain kind, strained and golden — is something I can make in my sleep, and some nights I do. But for anyone who doesn’t have thirty years of practice simmering a whole bird, or who needs something that can be on the table before the weight of a Wednesday night settles in for good, this pressure cooker version gets you to the same place faster. It’s loaded where Betty’s is spare, but the heart of it is the same: bone-in chicken, real broth, and enough warmth to hold someone through the kind of silence that has no easy end. Make it. Hold the mug with both hands. That’s the whole point.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 whole chicken (about 4 lbs), or 2 1/2 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces
8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 large yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, diced into 3/4-inch cubes
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 cup frozen green peas
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 tsp black pepper

Instructions

Load the pot. Place the chicken, broth, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, potatoes, bay leaves, thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper into the pressure cooker insert. The broth should just cover the chicken; add up to 1 cup of water if needed.
Pressure cook. Secure the lid and set the valve to sealing. Cook on High Pressure for 25 minutes. When the cycle is complete, allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes, then carefully quick-release any remaining pressure.
Shred the chicken. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board. Remove and discard the skin, bones, and bay leaves. Use two forks to shred the meat into bite-sized pieces.
Return and finish. Return the shredded chicken to the pot. Stir in the frozen corn and peas. Set the cooker to Sauté (or low simmer) and cook for 3 to 5 minutes until the vegetables are heated through.
Taste and serve. Adjust salt and pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls — or mugs, if that’s what the moment calls for. Serve hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pressure Cooker Loaded Chicken Veggie Soup — What You Make When Broth Is the Only Language Left