Instant Favorite

Here is a soup Stephen and I had for dinner last night - it was an instant favorite, plus it was super easy and fast to make!!

Chicken, Sausage and Rice Soup
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces hot turkey Italian sausage (just use mild italian turkey sausage if you want to feed it to the kiddos)
• 2 (2 1/2-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• Cooking spray
• 1 1/2 cups frozen chopped onion (I used fresh onion, but it doesnt matter)
• 2 thyme sprigs (or more - I used a lot bc the thyme sprigs were so tiny)
• 1/3 cup chopped celery
• 1/3 cup chopped carrot
• 2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 1 (3 1/2-ounce) bag boil-in-bag brown rice (or just any Instant-type Rice)
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (I just used some dried parsley)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (just add to your liking)
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper (add to your liking - I never measure salt or pepper)
  
  Remove casings from sausage (if the sausage has casings - the one I bought did not). Combine sausage and chicken in a large saucepan coated with cooking spray over high heat; cook 2 minutes, stirring to crumble sausage. Add onion and thyme; cook 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add celery, carrot, and broth; bring to a boil.
  Remove rice from bag; stir into broth mixture. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook 7 minutes or until rice is tender. Discard thyme sprigs. Stir in parsley, salt, and pepper.
  
  Mine ended up cooking for much longer, bc it was ready early but then we had to put Bennett to bed first. I also doubled it and it worked well. When I doubled it, I used 16oz mild italian turkey sausage and lots of tyme sprigs, and lots of pepper. I also just put the celery, onion, and carrot into a small Cuisineart to save time, which chopped it very very finely, so our soup didn't have any chunks in it. It was still super delish.
  
  Try it and let me know what you think!
  
  PS. This is from Cooking Light Magazine, so it is good for you! Bonus points! :)
  
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More posts to come about our weekend and another fun recipe of the season, so stay tuned and scroll down!