Chicken Tarragon Soup

4.93 from 13 votes

This soup is ready in about 30 minutes, once the chicken is cooked and can be removed from the bone, but the chicken just gets more and more tender the longer you simmer it. If you can let it simmer for even a little longer, about 45 minutes, the flavors continue to deepen and become more comforting-good.

Prep Time5

Cook Time30

Total Time35

Course: Soups and Stews

Keyword: chicken soup, tarragon, winter soup

Servings: people

Calories: 562kcal

Author: Sally Humeniuk

Ingredients

1 large yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
1 leek
2 stalks celery
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 ½ pounds bone-in chicken pieces
1 ½ cups dry white wine
2 ½ tsp dried tarragon
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
3 tsp lemon juice
sea salt and fresh black pepper, to taste

Instructions

Peel and finely chop 1 onion and 3 garlic cloves. Slice the leek and carefully rinse any dirt from the leek. Slice 2 stalks celery.
Add 2 Tablespoons olive oil to a large soup pot and add the onion, garlic, and leek. Cook until the onion is softened, about 4 minutes. Add the celery, 1 ½ pounds chicken pieces, 1 ½ cups wine, 2 ½ teaspoons tarragon and 3 ½ cups broth. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium and add 1 cup heavy cream, and 3 teaspoons lemon juice. Simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, turning the chicken once or twice. Cook until the chicken is thoroughly cooked, about 30 minutes.
Remove the chicken from the pot and pick the meat off the bone. Return the meat to the soup, add the salt and pepper. Taste and add more salt to taste, if needed.

Notes

If you want a smooth and creamy base to the soup, once you remove the chicken use an immersion blender and puree the soup until smooth. Add the chicken once removed from the bone, salt and pepper to taste.
This soup can also be prepared in a slow cooker on low heat over 8 hours.
If you like your soup to have more broth for dipping bread, you can easily increase the broth to 4 cups, the wine to 1 3/4 cup, the tarragon to 3 teaspoons, and the heavy cream to 1 1/4 cup. The rest of the ingredients don't need to be increased.
If you have fresh tarragon that you'd like to use in place of dried, I suggest adding it at the end of cooking, maybe when you have about 10 minutes left of cooking time. Whenever you use fresh herbs over dried, you need to increase the amount in the recipe, generally about 3 times as much as the dried herbs called for. So with this recipe, I'd use 2 to 3 tablespoons of fresh tarragon plus more for garnish before serving.
Lastly, if you're wondering if it's okay to add the cream during the simmer without having it curdle, the answer is 'yes' and 'maybe'. If you're cooking it on the stovetop or in the slow cooker, the fat from the cream, olive oil, and chicken help to prevent the cream from separating. That being said, if you're trying to adapt this recipe to the pressure cooker, like an Instant Pot, I would add the cream at the very end, before serving.

Nutrition