Today I Chicken-Noodle-Souped

I’ve been trying for a long time to figure out how to make chicken noodle soup from scratch; especially since I’ve learned to make my own pasta. I have an aversion to recipes that seem complicated or have too many ingredients (or require ingredients that I don’t keep on hand). For some reason I’ve never found a simple recipe for Chicken broth, or soup, so I just haven’t gotten around to trying it.

I use a lot of canned chicken broth for various things, and one day while I was reading through recipes--or blogs, or something like that--I saw something that talked about using chicken bouillon to make broth. I decided that would be a great way to have broth on hand, instead of taking up space (not to mention the expense) in those cans. On my next grocery trip to Costco I found a large bottle of powdered chicken bouillon. I was ecstatic, because I really don’t like those little hard cubes; they are a pain to work with. The kind I bought is supposed to be 1 tbsp = 1 cube.

From there I developed a plan in my head, to attempt chicken noodle soup. The end result was actually satisfactory.

Here is how it went:

I planned several hours in the afternoon (on a Sunday) to work on this project. First I made the pasta dough, then I rolled it and cut it into fettuccine (I only have 2 pasta cutters to choose from), about 4-6” strips. While those were drying I started on the soup.

I got out a package of frozen chicken breasts (2/package) and put it in the microwave to defrost. Then I got a large pot (maybe 6 quarts? I’m not sure the actual size) and filled it about 2/3 full of water; put that on the stove to boil. Once the chicken was mostly thawed I cut off all the fatty pieces and cut each breast into fourths, so they’d cook faster. In the pot they went. I set the timer for 30 minutes (intending to check on them after 15, but I got busy). Once they were cooked I put them on a cutting board to chop into bite sized pieces.

I poured the liquid (I’ll call it broth now, because I think that’s what it is) through a strainer into a bowl, to get all the foam and bits off. There was a rim of foam stuck on the pot, so I had to wash it off before pouring the broth back in.

The rest was easy. I put into the broth:

all the chicken pieces, ½ lb frozen peas & carrots, 5 stalks of celery that I chopped up, and I meant to add a can of corn, but I forgot.

I then added seasonings:

1 tsp onion powder, 1 tbsp onion flakes, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper, a pinch of garlic powder, 2 tbsp chicken bouillon, and 6 additional cups of water (to fill the pot to about an inch below the rim).

I let all of this come to a boil, and then turned heat down slightly to simmer for 10 minutes. After my timer beeped I added the noodles, and let those cook for 3 minutes (fresh pasta cooks faster than store bought).

Voila! Delicious chicken noodle soup…

Yes, it actually was pretty good.

We did however come up with a few things to try for next time:

Up the salt to 3 tsp, it was lacking something until we salted our individual servings, then it was great. Cut the pasta to 1-2” strips, the longer ones were sort of difficult to serve. Boil the veggies longer, the celery was still a little crisp, and we like it soft. Don’t forget the corn, and maybe some fresh onions would be good.

I was pleased that the kids actually liked it! Well…they were sort of torn:

One ate it, but said he likes beef stroganoff better, one gobbled up the peas and didn’t cry when we made her take bites of the rest but ate nothing else, one was in LOVE with the broth and couldn’t stop dipping his bread in it and expressing how delicious it was, and the 4^th child ate it all very quickly and with few words expressed that he enjoyed it.

In the end, I’d say it was a success!

Here is the recipe for the revised version:

Chicken Noodle Soup

Homemade Pasta (basic recipe)