My Best Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup To Date

Mmmm. This is a photo of my Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup from Tuesday.  It went WAY too fast.

You know, I was in my 30s before I had my first homemade chicken noodle soup. Generally, Campbell’s does it for me, and we eat it often.  Kroger had a sale this week and I bought about ten cans.  I bought two family size cans last week.  It’s a great fall and winter Sunday night meal for us.

But, several years ago, a friend made this soup for me homemade on a hard day with my babies.

“Mmmm”, I said.  It was such a nice meal to take to someone.

She said, “It’s not that hard…you can do it!”

Well, she told me her basic ingredients, and I’ve been throwing things in a pot ever since.

It was good–my family and my husband look forward to my making it. but, the balance never seemed quite right to me.

This week, I found recipes in both the cookbooks I bought.  I thought, “If the recipe is in several books, there must be more to it than throwing things in a pot.  Maybe I should, like, MEASURE.” I already had leftover chicken from feeding a crew Monday without power using lean sale strips I’d had frozen.  What a great Tuesday leftover meal for fall!  I was going to try it, armed with my new cookbooks.

I adjusted for what I had on hand, and the palettes of my kids…I asked their input on the picture first and they took me the parts that looked “yucky” to them.  Then, I combined the two recipes, and the balance was perfect!  I’ll definitely use it again!  In the past, sometimes the chicken didn’t have enough flavor, or it was too lean…but this worked, even with lean chicken.

Ingredients:

I used about 2-3 cups of the finely diced, cooked chicken (I’d sauteed it in olive oil, topcoated with salt until a glaze formed–adding about a cup of water the last four minutes, adding a lid, reducing heat.  This last step after it starts to sizzle makes the chicken tenders REALLY tender.)  The flavor the glazing added to the soup made my husband ask about the difference.  I’ll have to cook the chicken this way again before using it for this soup.)  Note:  if you do two chicken batches in the same skillet, it’s best to wash the skillet first or the chicken may turn too salty.

Olive oil – a splash or two

1 1/2 tsp.  salt

1/2 t. ground black pepper (I go light on this and added some white ground pepper)

2 tsp. Orrington Farms Chicken Flavored Chicken soup base and food seasoning (I LOVE this stuff–Kroger, the chicken bullion area)

Some super-fine diced carrots (to meet the palette of my kids better to start with)

I cut the celery for the same reason this time and added celery salt instead.  We’ll work up to that!

2 CUPS uncooked wide noodles.  Um…that would NOT be the whole bag…that would explain my soup imbalance prior using the whole bag)

2 bay leaves

1 tsp. Dehydrated onions (I rarely keep onion on hand)

10 cups of water

Boil.  Add noodles.  Cook about ten minutes.  Let cool ten minutes or so.  Eat!  Fast and filling…especially if you already have the chicken ready.  If not, you can boil your own chicken and make your own stock, drain fat, then start from there.  They say using chicken with the bone in is what actually makes the best stocks.  Who knew?