This is my personal favorite. I have always had a special place in my heart for noodles. You can make your own noodles or you can buy the kind you love. You can easily use noodles made with alternative flours to be gluten free and/or low carb.
Chicken Noodle Soup
The classic comfort food for the soul.
This can be made using turkey and is a great way to use up the Thanksgiving leftovers.
Ingredients
- Whole Chicken
- 4 cloves garlic
- large onion
- 8 packets herb ox chicken bullion
- 1 tablespoon thyme
- 1 tablespoon tarragon
- 1 teaspoon cilantro
- 2 large bay leaves
Directions
Start with a whole chicken. You can start with one that is frozen, just understand that it will take longer to cook. Put the chicken in a pot and cover it with water by about an inch. Bring it to a boil, then turn it to low. Simmer until chicken is cooked through. This takes about 3 hours. To check if the chicken’s done you can use a meat thermometer or you can stab it and consider it done when the juices are clear and the meat is falling off the bones.
While the chicken is taking its hot bath, get the stock goodies going. Finely chop or puree a large onion and 4 cloves of garlic (depending on the size of the clove). Toss them in the pot to swim with the chicken.
Add in herbox sodium free bullion. The amount you put in will depend on how much water you have. In a 8 quart pot, you’re going to put in 8 packets. The ratio is 1 packet per a cup. Don’t worry about the chicken displacement of the water. It’ll be tasty with a bit extra bullion.
Put in about 1 table spoon of thyme and tarragon. And about 1 teaspoon of cilantro. 2 bay leaves. Leeks are also a good addition. Throw the herbs in with the chicken.
Sit back, put your feet up and wait for the chicken to cook.
Once the chicken is cooked, turn off the heat. Put a colander into a second pot in the sink. Pour the chicken and broth into the colander so that the liquid goes into the second pot. Put the pot of broth back onto the stove. Pick out the skin and bones from the pile of chicken left in the colander (wait for it to cool a bit first). Chop the chicken up into pieces that are bite sized, using as much of the chicken meat as desired. What ever chicken you don’t use you can drop into freezer bags. It’ll make great additions to salads or sandwiches. Put the chicken back into the pot with the broth and simmer.
Make some egg noodles (see previous post). I make it with an 8 egg batch. flour the noodles generously, this will help thicken up your broth. Bring your broth to a boil and drop in the noodles. Stir them once in to keep them from cooking into a glump. Let them cook for about 10 minutes.
If you want a thicker broth, add some instant potatoes. That’ll give it more flavor as well as thicken it. Or you can serve the soup over a lump of mashed potatoes. I personally do both. Well, because potatoes are super tasty!
You can also add veggies. If they are canned, strain out the water and put them in after the noodles are cooked. Then give them enough time to heat through. Don’t worry about the noodles, they can handle the few minutes extra cooking time. If you’re using frozen veggies, put them in the same time as the noodles. Fresh raw veggies have a varied cooking time depending on how big you cut them and what the veggie is.
Happy cooking and enjoy!
Zebra Pig 