Full GAPS Creamy Chicken Tomato Soup With Cultured Cream

Carrots, leek, celery, and garlic soften slowly under a lid before mushrooms, tomatoes, and chicken join the pot. A little homemade cultured cream turns the tomato-rich stock creamy without hiding the vegetables or the bite-size pieces of chicken. This is a warming stovetop dinner for cold evenings, with six servings from one pot.

The first half-hour is deliberately quiet. Low heat and a lid let the vegetables soften in butter without browning. Have your homemade chicken meat stock and completed 24-hour cultured cream ready before starting; making those components takes additional time.

This soup is adapted from Carrie Korem’s creamy chicken, tomato, and vegetable soup, with the homemade cultured-cream finish used here for Full GAPS. Allow ten minutes to prepare the ingredients and about an hour to cook.

Where This Soup Fits on GAPS

This is a Full GAPS recipe after the vegetables, butter, and homemade cultured cream have been introduced and tolerated. It is not an early Introduction Diet soup. Keep the two celery ribs in this Full GAPS version, use finished homemade meat stock, and choose plain crushed tomatoes and dried herbs without added sugar, starch, or non-GAPS additives.

Cultured cream is sour cream made by fermenting cream. Use the completed homemade 24-hour preparation for the half-cup finish. Introduce that food separately before serving it in a full bowl of soup. This version contains dairy; the separate coconut-milk chicken tomato soup uses its own measured coconut oil and coconut milk amounts.

What You Need

• Four tablespoons unsalted butter: For softening the first vegetables.
• Four large carrots: Chop into small, similar-size pieces.
• One large leek: Chop and rinse carefully so grit does not reach the pot. Separate the layers while rinsing.
• Two celery ribs: Chop them to a similar size as the carrots.
• Four garlic cloves: Mince them.
• Eight ounces mushrooms: Slice before starting. They get their own cooking time after the first vegetables soften.
• Two teaspoons natural sea salt: Divide it into two equal portions. One goes in with the mushrooms and the other with the stock.
• Two teaspoons dried Italian herbs: Use a pure herb blend without additives.
• Four cups homemade chicken meat stock: Measure the finished stock, made from raw meaty chicken parts.
• Three boneless, skinless chicken breasts: These go into the simmering soup raw and whole, then are chopped after cooking.
• Twenty-four ounces crushed tomatoes: Use plain tomatoes packed in glass, without added sugar or starch. This is the weight of the tomatoes and their juice, not a measure of concentrated tomato paste.
• ½ cup homemade cultured cream: Have the fully fermented cream ready in the refrigerator.

How to Make It

1. Soften the First Vegetables Under a Lid

Melt the butter in a large stainless-steel or enameled pot. Add the carrots, leek, celery, and garlic, then stir to coat them. Cover and turn the heat to low. Cook for thirty minutes.

The vegetables should become soft and glossy, with a mellow garlic smell. Keep the heat low enough that the edges do not brown or scorch. This gentle covered cook is called sweating the vegetables.

2. Give the Mushrooms Their Turn

Add the sliced mushrooms and half of the salt. Stir and cook for ten minutes. The mushrooms will shrink and release moisture into the vegetables.

3. Add the Herbs

Stir in the dried Italian herbs and cook for one minute, until fragrant. Have the stock ready to add next.

4. Simmer the Chicken in the Soup

Add the finished stock, whole raw chicken breasts, crushed tomatoes, and remaining salt. Bring to a gentle simmer. Start checking the chicken after about ten minutes, then continue simmering until the center of the thickest breast reaches 165°F (74°C).

Small bubbles should rise through the soup rather than the whole pot boiling hard. Breast thickness changes the cooking time, so use the thermometer instead of relying on the ten-minute estimate.

5. Chop the Cooked Chicken

Lift out the fully cooked breasts onto a clean plate or board. Cut them into bite-size pieces and return them to the pot. Keep all the vegetables and tomato-rich liquid in the soup.

6. Stir in the Cultured Cream Off the Heat

Turn off the heat and let active bubbling subside. Measure the half cup of completed cultured cream and stir it through until the color is even, with no pale streaks remaining. Taste, adjust salt if needed, and serve warm.

Serving and Leftovers

Ladle the soup so each serving has chicken, vegetables, and creamy tomato stock. It is a complete main-dish soup; the recipe does not need pasta, rice, or flour to finish it.

Refrigerate leftovers promptly in covered shallow containers. Reheat the portion you need gently on the stove until it reaches 165°F (74°C), stirring to heat it evenly. Avoid boiling the creamy soup hard. Follow the separate stock and cultured-cream recipes for any unused ingredients still in their jars.

Equipment That Helps

Use a large pot with a lid, a knife and cutting board, measuring cups and spoons, a kitchen scale if weighing the mushrooms and tomatoes, a wooden spoon, tongs or a slotted spoon, a clean plate for the cooked chicken, a ladle, and a food thermometer.

The linked cultured-cream recipe uses a Luvele Pure Plus. Have that fermentation completed before starting the soup; its twenty-four-hour culturing time is separate from the soup’s seventy-minute preparation and cooking estimate.

Questions Before You Start

Why Do the Vegetables Cook for Thirty Minutes First?

That covered, low-heat step softens the carrot, leek, celery, and garlic before the stock goes in. Keep the pieces small and the heat gentle. The goal is soft vegetables without browned garlic.

Do I Cook the Chicken Separately?

No. Put the raw whole breasts into the pot with the stock and tomatoes. Simmer until they reach 165°F, then take them out to chop. The pieces return to the same soup.

Can I Add All the Salt at the Beginning?

Keep the measured salt divided as written. Half goes in with the mushrooms, and the other half joins the stock and tomatoes. Taste again after adding the cultured cream.

What If the Cream Looks Streaky?

Take the pot off the heat and let active bubbling stop before adding the cultured cream. Stir through the entire pot until the color is even. Do not keep boiling the finished creamy soup.

Can I Double the Soup?

Yes. Use the card’s 2× control to double all twelve ingredient amounts, including the butter and cultured cream. Keep the salt split in half. Use a pot with room above the ingredients, or make separate batches. The time to heat a larger pot and cook thicker breasts does not automatically stay the same.

More Homemade Soup Ingredients

Keep the chicken meat stock, 24-hour cultured cream, and unsalted butter recipes handy when planning this pot. For the other version of this soup, see the separate dairy-free coconut-milk recipe.

Plan More Homemade Soups

The planned Soups & Stews Cookbook is part of the WFLI catalog. Find current resources and upcoming offerings in the WFLI shop.