Chicken Corn Chowder

We had another really beautiful day today. As a result, it felt a little bit wrong to make a chowder, but since it's what we had planned, we went with it. And boy am I glad we did.

This corn chowder is simply delicious. While eating, Michael and I kept saying to each other, "This is really good!" And I am looking forward to leftovers, I'll tell you that. My only regret with this recipe is that I didn't find it sooner! I need to find a way to fit it into our recipe rotation another couple of times before the weather really starts to warm up.

When I was doing our meal planning early last week, I came across this recipe on Cooking Light's website, and even though I had never made (or even had) corn chowder before, I figured we couldn't go wrong with the ingredients.

As always, I read a lot of the reviews, and took some suggestions from them to help make the recipe even better than the original.

At first, I thought this chowder was going to be pretty thin, but after several minutes on the stove, it thickened up quite nicely. This is such a simple meal, too--perfect for a weeknight.

Chicken Corn Chowder
(Source: Adapted from Cooking Light)

Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 6 green onions
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 12-16 oz. chopped (or shredded) cooked chicken breast
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 (15 oz.) cans whole kernel corn (we use the "no salt added" variety)
- 1 (14 oz.) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
- 4 small white potatoes, peeled and diced
- 2 1/2 cups fat-free milk
- 1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:
1. Melt butter in a Dutch oven (or stockpot) over medium-high heat.

2. Remove green tops from green onions. Chop green onion tops; set aside. Thinly slice white portion of each onion. Add sliced onions to pan; sauté 2 minutes.

3. Add flour; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly with a whisk.

4. Stir in chicken, salt, pepper, 1 package of corn, and broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes.

5. While mixture simmers, combine the remaining corn and milk in a blender. Add a handful or two of the diced potatoes. (I combined everything in a smaller pot, then used my imersion blender--much easier cleanup!) Process until smooth.

6. Add remaining diced potatoes and milk mixture to pan; simmer 15 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

7. Ladle 2 cups chowder into each of 4 soup bowls; sprinkle evenly with green onion tops. Top each serving with 2 tablespoons cheese.