Slow cooker chicken and corn soup

Chicken and corn soup is an all-time favourite with my family. This slow cooker version is healthy, super easy and guaranteed to warm you up.

Firstly, I'm going to remove the husks from the corn. You just pull them down and just remove any silk. Next, all we want to do is get a small sharp knife and cut off the corn kernels. Don't throw away the corn cobs. These are going to add extra flavour to the soup. I'm going to throw that into the slow cooker with the corn cobs.

Now, I'm going to add a whole chicken. This gives so much more flavour than using a boneless chicken. Add the leek. We're only using the white part of the leek and the light green leaves. They're tender. You don't want to use the dark green tough parts of the leek. I'm going to add some garlic which I've bruised with a knife to release the flavour and then all we have to do is add some water. I'm going to add enough water to almost cover the whole chicken. Just the last little bit of water, pop on the lid and cook on high for 6 hours.

When the time's up, the chicken should be falling off the bone. We're just going to remove it from the slow cooker and place it in a baking dish. Look how tender that is. It's all fallen off, that's what you want.

The chicken has cooled for five minutes. I'm just going to grab two forks and remove the skin and then shred the meat coarsely. We're going to add the meat back to the slow cooker. You just discard the skin and bones just get rid of your carcass. Now take out the corn cobs. They've added their flavour so we can discard them.

Then to thicken the soup, we're going to blend some of it but we're just going to let the soup cool slightly so that we don't burn ourselves. Now to blend some soup. So you probably only want about a third of the soup blended to thicken it. You still want to have all those yummy bits in there.

Now, return the soup to the slow cooker then return the chicken. I've added some silverbeet just to give some hearty goodness. Pop on the lid and cook for another two minutes until the silverbeet wilts.

All that's left to do is to season with some salt and pepper to give this soup a fresh finish. I'm going to make a zesty, garlicky herb mixture. So what I've got is some chopped garlic, some chopped parsley and some lemon zest. Just mix them together.

Let's serve up. Ladle the soup into serving bowls and sprinkle with the parsley mixture. Let your slow cooker do the work and enjoy this delicious and hearty chicken and corn soup.