You will notice the ingredients list calls for cooked chicken. The reason is that boiling raw chicken breasts, etc., will yield a cruddy white muck on top of whatever liquid is used. You don't want that stuff in your soup.
Thus, I recommend simmering two hefty boneless, skinless chicken breasts in lightly salted boiling water for half an hour, then rinsing the breasts in cold water and then dicing them into 1/2" cubes or shredding them with two forks on a wooden cutting board. At that point you are ready to proceed making great Chicken Vegetable Soup.
Ingredients:
3, 14 oz. cans of chicken broth
1 cup of fresh or frozen corn
1, 14 oz. can of kidney beans
1, 14 oz. can of sliced potatoes, drained (or slice a raw one)
2 large celery ribs, diced
2 summer squash, quartered lengthwise and sliced into 1/2 thick pieces
2 large carrots, sliced into 1/4" thick circles
1 sweet red bell pepper, diced
2 cloves of garlic, diced
1 medium to large onion, chopped
1 tsp. of dried basil
1/2 tsp. of dried oregano
1 tsp. of salt
1/2 tsp. of pepper
1, 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes
4 cups of cubed or shredded cooked chicken
3 sprigs of fresh parsley, chopped
Directions:
In a soup pot, combine all of the ingredients except for the tomatoes, chicken and parsley.
Bring the mixture to a boil on high heat.
Reduce the heat to low.
Cover the soup pot with a lid and simmer for 25 minutes.
Stir in the chicken and the tomatoes and simmer for 3 minutes.
Serve the soup using the parsley as a decorative topping.
Each guest can further add salt and pepper as desired.
It is nice to serve this soup with a warmed loaf of sourdough bread or rolls and butter.