A Better Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe

If my USB cord connection for my camera worked, I'd have a lovely picture of homemade chicken noodle soup. You'll just have to do with my lovely harvest of Music Garlic last summer. We are using the last bulb now. Guess who forgot to plant garlic last fall? Big mistake. It has been excellent.

Here's a link to the buttermilk biscuits I made to go with the soup. Sassy Priscilla, why do you accidentally knock lamps and small children over with your hips? Ha! In attempt to get in control of my weight I only ate 2 biscuits.

I got the chicken soup stock recipe from Martha Stewart's January issue. I never knew it was so easy. However, with the homemade noodles, biscuits, and broth, be prepared to spend about 2 hours in the kitchen. That is OK because you can get your dishes put away, clean the next load and dream about your garden, and kick yourself for forgetting to plant garlic.

The noodle recipe is from AllRecipes. I don't know how to make vegetable stock yet. I bet Scott does. Scott and his family are vegetarians and he always has great green tips on his website. He has helped inspire me to be more conscious of my eating. It probably doesn't sound that way with my biscuit recipe and animal eating. But I've made quite an effort to think about what goes in our bodies and have eliminated corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils. We use BPA-free storage containers and I have found strained tomatoes in glass. I'm doing my best within our budget to buy organic. Aidan and I have always been good fruit and vegetable eaters and we are now working on Jeff. 

I'm going to be working on getting rid of soy next. When Aidan was an infant, he was allergic to dairy so I had to cut dairy and soy out of my diet for about a year because I was breastfeeding. I dropped a lot of weight. It could have been the dairy/soy elimination, it could have been the extra calories needed for breastfeeding, it could have been the stress of 3 heart surgeries for Aidan in 6 months. I'm guessing a combination. I gained all the weight back and then some and I wasn't a waif to begin with. So a change needs to happen.

Oh shoot, where was I? Noodles. Soup base. These noodles will be great in your favorite soup base - be it animal stock or vegetable. Add your favorite soup vegetables, use your favorite seasoning. I've just included our favorites and the template for how to make everything. Don't mess with the chicken, water or salt. Play around with any of the other ingredients. 

This makes enough soup to feed us 3, a couple lunches for me and some to freeze. Plus, you will have leftover chicken for another meal. Speaking of that, does anyone have a good recipe for leftover dark meat chicken?

Chicken Stock
as learned from Martha Stewart Living

Ingredients
1 cut-up fryer chicken
8 cups of water
1 T salt
1 large clove or 2 small cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1 t Penzey's Poultry Seasoning
1 slice Penzey's Ginger root or 1/2 t powdered ginger
3 Celery Heart Stalks, chopped
4 Carrots, peeled and chopped*
Homemade noodles (see recipe below) or your favorite store-bought noodles.
*Martha Stewart adds onion. I hate onion so it is not in my recipe. I would think this is a staple for most people. You may want to think about adding your own favorite vegetables here. If it were just for me, I would add broccoli and spinach near the end of cooking.

Directions
Prepare all your ingredients first. This will ease a little stress.

Put your fryer chicken pieces (skin and bones, too), salt and water in a pot. Bring to a boil. Skim off foam. Add garlic, poultry seasoning, ginger and celery [onions, too]. Lower heat to simmer. Cook for 30 minutes, partially covered.

Make your noodles during this first 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, get out a plate and your tongs. Remove the chicken breasts and place them on the plate to cool.

Add your carrots to the stock. Simmer, partially covered, for 40 more minutes. Towards the end of this time, remove the skin and bones from your chicken breasts and shred your chicken. Set aside.

After 40 minutes have passed, remove the dark meat chicken from the pot and reserve for another meal. Add your shredded white meat chicken to the stock and bring the stock back to a boil. Add your noodles and cook for a couple minutes. Reduce heat to simmer. 

Serve with your favorite crackers or bread.

Egg Noodles
from All Recipes

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions

In a large bowl, stir together the flour and salt. Add the beaten egg, milk, and butter. Knead dough until smooth, about 5 minutes. Let rest in a covered bowl for 10 minutes.

On a floured surface, roll out to 1/8 or 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired lengths using a pizza cutter.

If possible, allow to air dry before cooking. It just makes it easier to put it in the pot. It is not necessary.

Comments

[Junie Moon]

Chicken noodle soup is just what I need as I've been ill over the past week. Thanks for sharing this very informative post.

[Healthy Foods Blog]

It would be better if there really is an image of the soup. So sad your wire didn't worked and because of that, we can't see how great it is. Well, I guess I will just make my own soup by follow your recipe. I hope it will turn out well.

[S Yanoff]

Thanks for the props, Sarah! I think that Kathy buys some packages vegetable stock. I am guessing that it's prevalent these days in Pick 'n Save even. Another option is to take the prepared "Better Than Bouillon" cubes and add them to water.

I am curious about reasoning behind the getting rid of the soy. The dairy is a great one to get rid of -- best of luck! It's been tied to basic things such as stomach discomfort, intestinal issues (*ahem*), ear infections, eczema, and possibly cancer. Cow's milk is made to turn a 60-pound calf into a 600-pound cow. I'm always surprised when people drink a lot of milk and eat cheese knowing this. People don't always wonder why we are the only species that chooses to supplement its diet with milk from another species. You don't see this occurring in other parts of nature (cats breast-feeding squirrels -- funny image, eh?)

The soy, however, is harder to cut out. For example, if you really want to eliminate it, you would have to eliminate a large amount of food you eat. If you eat animals, they're fed soy, so when you eat them, you're eating mostly corn and soy ("you are what you eat" type of thing because that's what they are fed). If you have any type of processed food, it often has soy lecithin in it which is derived from soy.

Cheers,
-Scott