Chicken Noodle Soup

Nothing beats the homemade stuff.

Ingredients

Directions

This soup is best with high quality chicken stock and chicken, so I recommend buying a whole chicken and making your own stock. It will take you 6+ hours to make your stock, but it's worth it. If you already have a stock or want to cut a major corner, you can skip this first part.

Making Chicken Stock

Clean and quarter your whole chicken. Put it into a nice big stock pot - 8-12 quarts if you have it - and fill with enough cold water to cover the chicken plus an inch. Add 3-4 carrots, 3-4 stalks of celery, 1 quartered onion, 3-4 cloves of garlic, and a pinch or two of sage and thyme. Add a couple of bay leaves. Don't bother chopping the vegetables to bite-size - they're going to be strained out and replaced with other veggies later.

Bring the pot to a full boil. Then reduce and simmer (you should see steam and some infrequent bubbling) for five to six hours. During the first hour or two, make sure you skim the foam off the top and discard. That stuff is not part of your stock. Stir occasionally. If you lose too much liquid due to evaporation, you can add an extra few cups of water. Around 4-5 hours in, you'll be able to see chicken falling off the bones. If you can bend a bone and it crumbles, then you've done your job.

Strain out the solids. This might be difficult, but what I usually do is put another pot (big enough to hold the liquid) into the sink. Inside this pot I put a colander or mesh strainer big enough to catch the solids. Next, I (carefully!) pour the liquid into this strainer (and the pot underneath it). Gently dump the solid into the strainer and let it drain into the pot below. Put the solids aside (don't throw them away!) and return the stock to the stove.

Note: If you're not using the stock right away, I recommend cooling it as fast as you can by sitting the pot in an ice-water bath in your sink. Stir the pot around and make sure you get it cold quickly or bacteria will take advantage of your hard work. Then section your stock into containers and freeze.

With the "solids" you set aside after the day-long stock-making event, you can separate the chicken from the bones. Discard the bones and inedibles. The vegetables in there are probably mush and much of their flavor is in the liquid now, so dump 'em. Put the chicken aside for your soup.

Making the Soup

Bring your stock to a boil in a nice big stock pot. Let it boil for two minutes. Bring it down to a simmer.

Chop your carrots, celery, onion, and garlic to bite-sizes (you can mince your garlic; not everyone enjoys big bites of garlic like we do). Add these to your stock.

Add a pinch of thyme and sage.

Add your chicken and simmer for 5-10 minutes minimum. I usually do this in advance and leave it simmering until 10 minutes before serving. That's when I add the noodles. I like a lot of noodles, but too many and you'll lose a lot of your soup liquid.

At the end, add a few pinches of fresh, chopped parsely, a squeeze of lemon juice (or a few tablespoons), and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with warm bread.

Note on leftovers: If you have any leftovers, you can serve this over mashed potatoes a la Beef and Noodles.