Make Cooking Fun and Educational: Quick and Easy Slow Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup
This dish warms your heart and feeds your soul. Slow cooker chicken soup and a scoop is quick, easy, and made with familiar, kid friendly ingredients! A few minutes 20mins or less of prep and throw it all in the slow cooker and you have a meal ready to go. We like to add a “scoop of mashed potatoes” to top of our chicken noodle soup. Try it!!
Watch Video
To learn how to make recipe
Ingredients
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 3 large diced carrots
- 3 stalks diced celery
- 1/2 cup minced onion
- 2 cups diced leftover chicken
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tbs fresh garlic
- 1 tsp rosemary
- 2 bay leaves
- ¼ tsp start with, then salt to taste
- 1 cup Ditalini pasta noodles (tiny tubeshaped pasta)
- 1½ unsweetened cashew milk
- *Optional add a scoop of cooked mashed potatoes to bowl of soup before serving. The recipe works with instant or real mashed potatoes.
Prep and Directions:
KITCHEN APPLIANCES & TOOLS NEEDED: Slow cooker, Pan, Ladle, Ice cream scoop and Kitchen timer.
Prep time: Less than 20 minutes cutting up vegetables and measuring out spices.
Cook time: 4 hours (3 hours without noodles or cashew milk)
[2]
[3]
Instructions
- Place all ingredients other than noodles and cashew milk into the slow cooker, and cook on high for 3 hours (set kitchen timer for 3 hours).
- After 3 hours of cooking in the slow cooker, add noodles and almond milk and cook for one hour longer.
- Add salt to taste.
- Remove bay leaves.
- Ladle hot soup into a bowl.
- Add a scoop of mashed potatoes to each bowl of soup before serving and enjoy.
[4]
[5]
Tip: You can be boiling raw potatoes, while the soup cooks for about 20 minutes or make instant according to the package.
Eat! Talk! Enjoy!
Language Time Tips:
1. Build vocabulary: Use nouns and action words. Nouns: Mashed potatoes, soup, chicken broth, onion, etc…Action words: scoop, cut, add, remove, pour, etc…
2. Colors and Size: There are different colors in this mix: white for the chicken and mashed potatoes, orange for the carrots, green for the celery, etc… You can practice your child’s receptive language of colors, sizes and textures: With all of the ingredients being different, you can ask, “Which is smoother, the mashed potatoes or the chicken?”, “Which ingredient smells the best, or the worst (onions, for example)?”, “Which ingredient is orange?”
3. Comment and Describe: Let your child taste each ingredient of the recipe and discuss the flavors and textures. Encourage your child to describe the ingredients that are hard, soft, crunchy, or wet.
Related: Talk with Me: Enhancing Communication through Natural Family Routines [6]
4. Sequencing and recalling information: This recipe has and easy order to follow, it needs to be prepared ahead of time so that it can be placed in the slow cooker at one time. Ask your child to tell you which ingredient they remember working with first, second, etc…. See how your child follows the steps. Ask them to tell you the order of the ingredients. Ask them if it matters what order the ingredients are placed into the slow cooker? What happens if they do not follow the order?
5. Answering and asking “wh” questions: Sample “wh” questions include: Sample “wh” questions include, “What is the broth for?” or, “What makes this taste so good?” or, “What would happen if we put in too much salt?” and “Where should the mashed potatoes be placed in the bowl, center or on the side?”
Literacy! Try a fun syllable activity by counting how many syllables are in each ingredient. What ingredient has the most syllables? How about the least amount of syllables? The word “potato” has several syllables, for example…how does that sound and what other words can you think of that have that many syllables, etc…?
Encourage Speech & Create Yum With These Recipes for Cooking With Kids [7]
More Chicken Recipes
https://www.parentingspecialneeds.org/article/cooking-kids-easy-chicken-tortilla-soup/
https://www.parentingspecialneeds.org/article/easy-chicken-nuggets/
https://www.parentingspecialneeds.org/article/foodie-fun-kids-chicken-pot-pie-cupcake/
You May Also Like
- Cooking With Kids: Turkey Quesadillas & Cran-Apple Sauce [8]
- Cooking with Kids: Game Day Turkey Meatballs [9]
- Do You Struggle With Planning Healthy Meals for Your Family? [10]
- Easy School Lunch Ideas for Busy Parents [11]
- Handling a Special Diet at School [12]
- Benefits of Special Diets for Special Needs Children [13]
- Most Popular Gluten Free/Casein Free Products and Where to Find Them [14]
- Focus on Color [15]
This post originally appeared on our January/February 2018 Magazine [16]