Chicken Cordon Blue Soup

I planned to make this soup yesterday, but, well....I was just too tired. I made the mistake of eating out at a fast food place. Yeeeah. I spent the rest of yesterday with a bloated, upset stomach. I should know better than to eat fast food. It usually never agrees with me.

This soup, however, is fabulous. And I threw it together this morning in about 30 minutes. Of course, I had some of the prep work done already like the bacon was already cooked as was the ham. I just chopped them up this morning.

I didn't think to take pictures of the whole process....it wasn't until after I finished making this soup that I decided to document it. Call it old age. Call it 5am. Whatever. So you'll have to make do with pictures of the finished product.
It's fabulous, tasty, and comes together quickly.


 CHICKEN CORDON BLUE SOUP

1 chicken breast, cooked and shredded (or use a store rotisserie chicken)
2 cups diced cooked ham
4 slices bacon, cooked crispy and diced
12 ozs sliced Swiss cheese
8 ozs cream cheese, cut into small pieces
1/4 c flour
1/2 stick of butter (1/4 cup)
2 tsp chicken bouillon (or 2 cubes, crushed)
3 cups half-n-half
3+ cups milk

Process:

Melt butter in large pot, add flour. Cook 1 minute. Add the half-n-half and 1 1/2 cups of the milk.  Cook 3 minutes, then add bouillon, stirring well.
Add cream cheese, stirring until melted. Now, I used a stick blender to make sure it was *really* smooth. But you can just stir with a wooden spoon until it is smooth.

At this point, I pulled the swiss cheese into strips and pieces and added it to the pot. Stirring well after each slice before adding the next slice.

The soup got incredibly thick, really fast. So I added the other 1 1/2 cups of milk and stirred well.
Then I added the diced ham, bacon, and shredded chicken.

If your soup is still so thick it looks like a huge cheese blob, add more milk (this is why I said 3+ cups in the ingredients). For me, I like a cheesy soup, but I also like to be able to have it stay on the spoon and not slip off because the cheese stringing down off the spoon pulls it back into my bowl, so I ended up adding almost a whole half gallon of milk.
You may like your soup really thick and cheesey, or not. It's really up to you. Just be sure if your soup is thick and you want it thinner, add milk sparingly. You can always add more milk to thin out your soup, but you cannot take milk OUT and thicken it up.  Less is more, and slow and steady wins the cooking contest!