Pots & Plots

Guess I’ve got chicken on the brain. I’ve also got the infamous Crud (that sort of ubiquitous allergy/sinus/cold thing everyone here has this time of year), so I decided to make up a batch of my famous homemade chicken noodle soup for myself. Normally this is reserved for taking to sick friends and family but after having a can of Campbell’s the other day and being massively disappointed, I decided I was worth making my soup for.

Ingredients:

• whole chicken or 3-4 chicken breasts and/or thighs, bone-in (to make stock–homemade is best, but store bought is acceptable–approximately 2 quarts, in which case you can just use boneless breasts and thighs to make it in a hurry)
• olive oil
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 3 ribs of celery, diced
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 cup of diced carrots (I usually just buy the crinkle cut ones in the freezer section)
• parsley (fresh or dried)
• thyme (1/8th tsp)
• kosher salt
• fresh ground pepper
• paprika
• cayenne pepper (the secret ingredient…the little bit of heat helps to decongest)
• 2 cups dry noodles of your choice (I prefer whole wheat rotini or No Yolks dumplins)

Instructions:

1. Boil chicken to make stock. Remove chicken to cool. Once cool, debone and dice or shred with a pair of forks.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil over medium high heat.
3. Add diced vegetables and garlic and cook over medium heat until onions and celery are translucent and carrots are starting to soften.
4. At this point you can continue on the stovetop or transfer to a crock pot.
5. To the vegetable mixture, add stock (approx. 2 quarts). Add the chicken.
6. Add herbs and spices and cover. If cooking on stovetop, simmer on low for 1 hour. If cooking in a crockpot, cook on low for 4 hours.
7. Add noodles and cook until al dente. Do not add until just before you’re ready to serve or they get mushy and fall apart in the soup.

I’ve always gotten rave reviews when I take this soup to sick friends and family, and I’ve turned quite a few of them into chicken soup snobs–once they had my soup they couldn’t go back to the canned stuff (though I’m sure a lot of that is that homemade soup in general is just a lot better than the canned stuff rather than any superior skill on my part). Bon appetite!

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