Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

A Tale of Love and Ladles: The Ultimate Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe

When the mercury drops or illness strikes, my go-to comfort is a warm bowl of soup. Among the vast array of options, chicken noodle soup holds a special place in my heart, enriched with a love story that spans over 14 years. Keep reading this heartwarming tale and discover the recipe that has become a symbol of care and connection.

Nearly 14 years ago, during the pre-dating app era, I met my husband online. Our attempts to meet were thwarted by life’s challenges—my caregiving for my ailing grandfather in California and his juggling act through a divorce in Kansas City. Fate finally aligned, but just as we set a date, I fell ill. After I ensured him that I was not making excuses to not see him, he valiantly offered to bring me chicken soup and a movie.

As a person who is always taking care of others, the idea of someone willing to take care of me was amazing.  This young skinny marine showed up at my door carrying cans of chicken noodle soup and a copy of The Princess Bride.  

At the time we were both so poor that he had to “splurge” to afford name brand soup.  I had store brand white bread, margarine and generic American cheese slices. 

We made some grilled cheese sandwiches, heated up our soup and he let me sleep while he watched The Princess Bride. I thought for sure he’d never talk to me again. How great is a date where one of you is sick and sleeps the whole time?

It has been 14 years since that first date, and I have cooked some amazing dishes for him and I have made him homemade chicken noodle soup several times.  This recipe is what I make. 

Ingredients:

Fats: 

• Unsalted Butter
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Not only does fat create a good mouth feel when we slurp up that big spoonful of steaming broth, it also helps create another layer of flavor on our vegetables.  We sauté the vegetables in our fat before we add any spices or broth.  The process of sautéing creates a little bit of carmalization on the vegetables and thus adds another layer.  I like to use a mix of unsalted butter and extra virgin olive oil.  Butter alone I feel is too rich and the smoke point is too low.  Olive oil alone is not deep enough to impart the full flavor potential.  

Aromatics: 

• Garlic
• Onion
• Carrot
• Celery
• Fresh thyme
• Fresh rosemary
• Bay Leaf
• Dried Parsley

In most of my cooking, I like to ensure that there are layers of flavor.  When I make soup, there are several components. Texture, broth to solids ratio, aromatics, 

Using fresh garlic, onion and celery mixed with garlic and onion powder and celery salt, gives a few different layers of flavor.  The bright fresh flavors of the fresh aromatics as well as the deeper flavors of the dried and ground garlic, onion and celery. 

I do not use dried herbs if I can avoid it simply due to texture.  There is nothing I hate more than taking a nice big steaming spoonful of soup and biting into a hard rosemary leaf or the stem of some thyme.  So for those, I stick to fresh if I can.  But if you can’t use fresh herbs, then by all means! Use dried herbs.  I use them a lot if I can’t find the fresh herbs or if I’m honestly just too sick to go to the store.  Thyme is a much more delicate flavor than rosemary is.  So I put about three times the amount of fresh thyme than I do rosemary.  

The exception to this is the bay leaf and the parsley.  The bay leaf helps round out the herbs and adds depth to the soup. The parsley is added at the end and gives a pretty color and the dried is nice and delicate and doesn’t create a sharp mouth feel.

Some fresh diced carrots adds a touch of sweetness and color to the soup.  

Starch:

• Potato
• Pasta

To create a good balance in a soup, you need to have some starch mixed in with your other vegetables.  This can be beans, potato, pasta, etc.  In this soup I use a mix of diced potato and cooked pasta.  

The potato is peeled, diced and added to the pot with the aromatics.  I do not soak the potatoes, I add them freshly cut to the pot.  Any starch that leeches out during cooking helps add a silkiness to the final product.  

For the pasta, I use a spiral rotini pasta.  I have used elbow macaroni, alphabet pasta, fun shapes and even wide egg noodles.  However, when I make soup I make a huge pot and eat it over the next few days.  I have found that rotini pasta holds up well to days of soaking up the broth and doesn’t loose its integrity. 

Meat:

• Chicken

As the name suggests, we use chicken in this well…chicken noodle soup.  There is a few options you can do here.  You can start with a whole chicken, fabricate it; or cut it into its parts, use the dark meat and bones to make your broth.  You can use precooked meat from a rotesserie chicken, you can use thighs or breasts or a mix of the above.  In this recipe, I simply use chicken breast.  I like how the diced chicken gives little jewels of tender meat mixed in with the vegetables. I do not add the chicken in right away, breast meat can dry out very quickly.  Because of this, I dice the chicken breast and allow the residual heat to cook the chicken breast.  

Spices/additions: 

• Onion powder
• Garlic powder
• Celery salt
• Better than Bullion
• Salt
• Pepper

The addition of dried and ground aromatics in this recipe allows for a full robust flavor.  In this recipe I mirror the fresh vegetables in dried powder form.  Onion powder, garlic powder and celery salt.  If you are not using freshly made chicken broth, use a bouillon base.  I always use Better than Buillon base.  Buillon base is simply chicken broth that has been boiled down until almost no water remains and it is a thick, concentrated, syrup or paste that can be reconstituted with water.  

And as with all recipes, you want to add salt and pepper to taste. 

Process: 

Always add fat to a hot pan. 

If you are using a regular stock pot, place the pan on the burner and turn it on to medium-high heat.  Allow the pan to warm up before adding any fat to the pan. 

I use an instantPot..  For the instantPot I turn on the sauté function and allow it to come to temperature.  I then add the olive oil and butter.  Allow the butter to mostly melt. 

Add the minced garlic and the diced onion, celery, carrot and potato to the hot fat.  Sauté slightly for 2-3 minutes until the onion is starting to become translucent.  

Sprinkle the garlic powder, onion powder, celery salt, salt and pepper over the sautéed vegetables.  Stir in the Better than Buillon.  Add 2-3 sprigs of thyme, one sprig of rosemary and one bay leaf. 

At this point I add water to the “max fill” line.  Which is about 10-12 cups total. I do this because I like more broth to solids ratio.  If you prefer less broth, add less water.  Cook the soup on high pressure for 5 minutes.  

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in salted water according to the box directions.  Drain the pasta and set it aside.  Trim and dice the chicken breast.  

In my instantPot I can’t do a quick release with that much liquid in it or it makes a huge mess.  So I put mine on pulse release.  After 10 minutes of pulse release, I stop the instantPot and I change it to quick release.  

Very carefully open the instantPot, careful not to burn yourself on the steam.  Carefully add the diced chicken and stir gently.  Pull out the bay leaf, the rosemary stem and the thyme stems.  

Allow the chicken to cook from the residual heat.  If the chicken doesn’t seem to be cooking, turn the sauté function back on and allow the soup to cook until there is no pink in the chicken meat.  The chunks will be small so using a thermometer is not practical.  You can simply cut open a chunk and make sure there is no pink.  

Once the chicken is cooked through, add the cooked and drained pasta to the soup.  

TASTE THE SOUP!

Ok, in case you didn’t read that…TASTE. THE. SOUP. 

You should never be serving something without tasting it.  If needed, add some more garlic powder, onion powder, celery salt, salt and pepper.  

Dish this soup out while it is piping hot into deep bowls.  Serve with grilled cheese sandwiches, saltine crackers, oyster crackers or freshly baked bread.