Giada De Laurentiis' Winter Chicken Stew | Everyday Italian | Food Network

Next time you're craving chicken soup, why not try something heartier? I've got a special recipe that does the trick. Italians make a delicious tomato and chicken stew that's chock full of crunchy celery, sweet carrots and onions, and soft kidney beans. Chicken stew, make a big pot. It tastes even better the next day. I'm going to start with the base of my stew, my soffritto. First I'm going to oil my pan and we're going to add our veggies. So the chopped onion, the carrots and the celery, just add it to the pot, season it with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper, and we're going to let these cook down for a few minutes. Chicken stew in Italian is known as spizzatino, and it got its name because the meat gets cut off the bone into small little pieces, which we're going to do later on with our chicken. We're going to add our canned tomatoes. For the richness, we're going to add some tomato paste, and you want to make sure when you add tomato paste that you don't add too much. It's a very concentrated flavor. Just about a tablespoon. Higher our heat just a little bit. And now for our liquid, our chicken broth, and I'm using low-sodium chicken broth just to control the salt in this dish. Now I just want to make sure that the tomato paste melts into our liquid so you don't get chunks of tomato sauce. That looks perfect. Now for our herbs. Some fresh basil. Mmm, basil reminds me of summer, so I always like to add it in these dishes. Just going to tear it up and throw it in here. Next, our bay leaf. Put a little bit of earthy woodsiness. And finally, our thyme. Some minty, lemony flavors. Just a pinch. It's very fragrant, so you don't need a lot. Make sure that they're all incorporated. And now for the star, our chicken. We're using chicken breast on the bone with the skin left on, and the skin is going to melt and give this so much flavor. You want to make sure that the chicken has enough liquid to cover it. So I'm going to stew this for about 20 minutes so I can lock in all the flavors and the moisture. And it'll be the best chicken stew you've ever had. Winter chicken stew chases the chill away. I'm going to let my chicken cool before I shred it. In the meantime, I'm going to add my own twist. Red kidney beans. I've drained them, and I'm adding them to the stew at this point because I don't want them to fall apart and become mushy. So I'm just going to shred my chicken in about bite-sized pieces. Roughly the size of the beans so everything can go in your mouth in just one bite. The chicken is so moist and tender. And if you don't like the skin, you can take the skin off, which I'm going to do. And this stew serves about four to six people, depending on the size of the bowl you want. In this case, it's going to serve four for sure. I like to have a nice big bowl. The meat is juicy and moist, and that's what you get when you stew it. Let's put this back in our stew. Mmm. Great. Mmm. This smells and looks so good. I'm going to grab myself some. Just a little bit. It's a beautiful dark red color. Mmm. Chicken is moist. It's creamy and hearty.