Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup, old school.
Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup - a staple in our home that is simple, healthy and helps support our immunity + gut health! I love making homemade broth, it’s so much easier than you think! The best part? These ingredients and amounts are flexible - hate parsnips? Leave them out. Don’t have a tomato, no problem just skip it. Love carrots? Add some extra! This soup is very hands off and is a great habit to get into.
Ingredients:
- 1 whole fryer chicken, or 2-3 bone in, skin on, chicken breasts
- 4 whole carrots, peeled, rinsed & cut in half.
- 2 onions
- 2 parsnips, peeled, rinsed & cut lengthwise
- 4 stalks celery, rinsed & cut in half.
- Garlic cloves, to taste. I usually cut a whole garlic clove in half, peel on and toss it in. otherwise a few cloves are good too!
- 2 small potatoes, peeled and quartered.
- Red bell pepper – I usually use ½ a pepper.
- 1-2 small tomatoes (optional)
- 1 handful of parsley – whole, fresh for boiling
- 1 TBS dried parsley, garnish at the end
- ½ TBSP whole peppercorns
- Salt
- 1 TBS of all-purpose soup seasoning. Vegeta or similar. If you don’t have this you can leave it out!
- 1 Bay Leaf
- Any kind of soup noodle! I like Ditalini as they are hearty!
Optional: I like to throw in a handful of fresh spinach into my bowl and sprinkle with a little parmesan!
Directions:
- Remove any insides/gizzards from chicken and trim any excess fat. Then rinse chicken thoroughly under cold water and place in very large pot. The biggest one you can find!
- Cut onion in half with the peel on and roast it over the stove flame for a few minutes each side. This gives a deeper flavor and helps with coloring of soup.
- Place all prepared veggies + a handful of fresh parsley, peppercorns and bay leaf into the pot surrounding the chicken and fill with cold water until mixture is covered and put the lid on.
- Turn the stove on to medium-high heat to gently bring soup to a boil. Let soup boil for 10 mins, then reduce to low heat. At this point you will want to skim any foam from the chicken into a separate bowl and discard. Clean broth is important! I do this a few times while soup simmers.
- After simmering for 1 hour or so, add 2 TBS Vegeta.
- Let continue to simmer on low for another 30-45 minutes.
- Prepare second pot, strainer and large cutting board. For this you will need your second largest pot, a large strainer and cutting board.
- Once veggies are tender and chicken is cooked through (it will be falling off the bone), remove chicken, some carrots, celery, potato, parsnip and place on cutting board. For this, you’ll want to remove however much you would like to add diced back into your soup mixture. Some homes like just the broth with little meat and veggies – we like it to be hearty so I add a lot of everything!
- Next, place second pot with strainer in the sink, and pour liquid and remaining veggies through strainer into the pot. Then take whatever is in the strainer and press it down to get some extra flavor into the broth. Discard remnants of strainer and return the new pot to the stove.
- Next you will dice up chicken and veggies and add them back into the broth. At this stage you can check broth for seasoning, add salt and pepper as needed, adjust accordingly and I always add some dried parsley at the end.
- If serving the entire pot that day, bring broth to a boil and add in your noodles to cook. I generally do not do this and keep my noodles cooked separate, and add them to the heated broth throughout the week. If you do add noodles, you’ll need to eat within a day or 2 as they will become mushy.
This recipe is great to make on Sunday, so you have broth all week. You can add all the cooked veggies and chicken back in, and make it a whole meal, or you can simply use the broth and some noodles to eat before the main course. This broth is packed with nutrients and it’s a great to have throughout the week. I hope you enjoy it!