Chicken Noodle Soup
By Kevin Berardinelli
Difficulty: Medium
Prep Time: 30 Min
Cooking Time: 2-3 Hours
Description
I’ve never made chicken soup from scratch before, so I figured it was about time. Looking at a few different recipes online, it seems one can get as creative as desired and there is no way to really mess up – perfect guidelines for a first time recipe!
Ingredients
1 Whole Chicken
Chicken Stock
Baby Carrots (half a small bag or so)
Yukon Gold Potatoes (a few small ones)
Egg Noodles (1/2 lb or so)
1 Large Sweet Onion
Fresh Parsley
Grated Parmesan Cheese
Marjoram, Rosemary, Thyme, Garlic Powder, Salt, Fresh Ground Black Pepper (to taste)
Directions
1. Rinse off the whole chicken (make sure innards bag is removed from inside). Place whole chicken in large soup pan/pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and reduce to a very low/slow simmer. Cook the whole chicken as slow as possible to keep tender.
2. When the chicken is mostly done, you have a couple options. The first option is to drain all the water and leave just the chicken – replacing the liquid with chicken stock after fat & bones are removed. The second option is to skim the fat off the top of the water and keep the chicken stock you have made, using that as your broth. Either way, you’ll have nice chicken flavor. I went with option #1 to start fresh and remove excess fat from the liquid.
3. Chop all the vegetables and potatoes and add to the pot of broth/stock. Keep on a low simmer. Keep in mind you can add whatever vegetables you want here – mushrooms, squash, peppers, celery, etc – you choose the combo that best fits your appetite!
4. Remove all the bones and fat/skin from the chicken and break the meat into small shreds and chunks. Put all the meat back in the pot.
5. Add all the spices, including fresh chopped parsley. Keep at a low simmer. You can control the thickness by adding more water if necessary, covering the pot, and/or turning up the heat a bit to steam some out.
6. Add the egg noodles when you think you have about 20-30 min left.
7. Keep stirring and on a low simmer. Add some parmesan cheese towards the end for the best flavor in the entire universe.
8. Garnish with fresh parsley leaf, fresh ground black pepper, and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. Serve with a cold glass of milk (duh!).
kevin berardinelli 
that seems to be a good recipe.
the long cooking time should make it really nice
I’ve never attempted this before… but you’ve given me a little spark of courage. I never really could figure out the whole making the stock part!
Just submerge the chicken in h2o and/or store-bought chicken stock, cook on a very low simmer, then remove chicken for removal of fat/bones. Some say you can let the stock you made sit and cool so the fat rises to the top (and you can skim it off). Then you can add vegetables and the boneless chicken chunks/strands back to it for the soup making!
Also, you can control the thickness of the soup (mine was real thick) pretty easily. For thick soup/stew, add dry noodles to the soup pot. For thin brothy soup, cook the noodles separately and then add to the soup. This was my first real soup experience – pretty nice to know you can control thickness, saltiness, healthiness, flavor, all pretty easily.
That being said, you are a much more advanced chef than I am so I’m probably telling you a lot that you already know!
Oops, I forgot to set up email reply so I didn’t know you had written here. No, I’ve never made soup or stock, so you are more advanced than me here! It always intimidated me… but it seems like it was pretty straightforward? I’ll give it a try — would be nice to make a bunch and freeze it.