Chicken Noodle Soup

If you’ve never flown solo without a net (or recipe)in the kitchen, soup is the place to start. For a clear soup, start with water, some bouillon, veges and chicken, if you like. Clean out the crisper in the frig, add last night’s leftover carrots or mashed potatoes, throw in some cheese, chopped Italian parsley, maybe a cup of milk or cream...the possibilities are endless, really.

Give it time to simmer, of course, and let it cook down a bit to really boost the flavors. If you like noodles, add those in the last 15 to 20 minutes, but be sure you have liquid to spare, as they will suck up their share! Put in what you like, and odds are you’ll like what you end up with! Soup is one of those hands-on, organic concoctions that let your culinary creativity take flight.

Still not quite ready? Well, that’s okay, I’ll walk you through a basic recipe and, by the time we’re done, I think you’ll be amazed not only at how easy it is, but impressed with your own culinary skills!

First, though, a few tips to make life easier!

Chicken: white or dark, whole or chopped, frozen or thawed, bone in or out? Yes! In other words, all options can get you to the same goal. If you despise dark meat, don’t use it, or if all you have is chicken breasts, that fine. Do you have half a deli chicken leftover? Great, just toss the leftover meat-and the carcass for that matter- into the water to stew for an hour.

Forgot to thaw something? Haven’t we all! Throw in a couple frozen chicken breasts and a thigh too, if you have one (my preference is a mix of dark and white, since dark meat adds more flavor). Bone in or out? Eventually they are coming out, so don’t sweat it. Either is fine. Basically, for this recipe’s purposes, you are going to want about 3 cups of diced chicken when all is said and done.

Broth/Bouillon: If you are starting with uncooked chicken, the cooking process is going to make most of your broth, but if your chicken is already cooked, you might want to replace half the water with broth. I’d still add a little bouillon mix too, to punch up the flavor, but I’ll cover that when the time comes.

Chopping: Obviously, you are going to have to chop/dice chicken by hand, but we’re adding onion, celery and carrots and you most certainly can do those with a food processor if you have one. If not, don’t worry, chopping veges can be a Zen kind of moment, so put on some mellow music, grab your sharpest knife and get in the zone!

Noodles: alphabet, penne, fusilli, rigatoni?! Sure! Remember, however, that thicker noodles suck up more broth. My preference is fettucini. It’s just thick enough to be noticed, but if you break it into 2-3 inch long pieces before adding to the broth it will be bite size.

Chopped vs. diced: I think diced denotes a finer version of chopped. For this recipe I’d err on the side of chopped-that way you really feel like you are eating the veges and chicken along with the broth.

Okay, we’ve covered the basics, now let’s get cooking.

Chicken Noodle Soup

This takes about 3 hours, so plan ahead. And yes, the leftovers freeze well.

Add to a large pot (6-8 quart) on your stove:

4 quarts water (if you chicken is already cooked, make a 50/50 mix of half chicken broth and half water)

2 chicken breasts and one thigh (if you chicken is already cooked and diced, use the broth mix above and wait to add your chicken in the next step-I’ll remind you!)

3 tsp. chicken boullion mix (if you have done the 50/50 broth and water mix, add this to taste. Start with one tsp and later, after we’ve reduced this down, you can always add another teaspoon if you think it’s needed for flavor.)

½ medium white onion, chopped

1 cup chopped celery

2/3 cup carrots, chopped

1 Tb. diced garlic (yes, by all means use the stuff in the jar-life is short!)

1/4 cup chopped Italian Parsley

2 ½ tsp. garlic salt

2 tsp. pepper

1/2 cup white wine-optional (not too dry, a Riesling works nicely. And of course, don’t worry about the alcohol, that will be long gone by the time you serve your soup. But the white wine will add a complexity to the overall flavor-trust me here!)

Heat to a boil, then turn down and simmer lightly, uncovered, for about 2 hours. Then it’s time to taste. Does it still taste a little ‘thin’? As in, not so flavorful yet? If your liquid has reduced to at least half, you may need to add a dash more salt, or a bit more boullion mix. Don’t be heavy handed, but don’t be a coward.

If, however, it’s pretty tasty already, you are getting somewhere! Once you get to this point, pull out the chicken, remove all bones and then chop the chicken up into bite sized pieces. If your chicken was already chopped and you were waiting to add it, now is the time. Return all chopped chicken to the pot and boil another ½ hour. If it tasted good already, put the lid on, if not, make your additions and keep the lid off so the liquid will reduce a bit more. After half an hour taste again.

By now, your soup should be pretty flavorful, and still have enough liquid left to handle the addition of noodles without reducing down too much more.

Add noodles!

Here you want to err on the side of ‘less is more’. If you add too few noodles, you just end up with more broth and everything else, and that’s okay. But if you add too many noodles, you lose a lot of broth. My rule of thumb is that if you have to measure it out, like alphabet noodles, add 1/2 a cup. I like to break up longer noodles, so my rule is to grasp a clump of linguini or fettuccini that is about 3/4 of an inch across. Then, depending how long you like your noodles, break the pasta into 3 or 4 pieces per noodle and drop into the pot to simmer.

Simmer your pasta 15 to 20 minutes and you are done!

I like to serve this with blueberry muffins, or corn bread. You can add a salad too, if you like.

That’s it, you made soup! Now that you have the basics, be brave and mix it up next time. You can do it!