Chicken Noodle Soup
There’s nothing that can possibly make me feel better than a bowl of freshly made chicken noodle soup! Just like most other people around the world, I grew up eating and making chicken noodle soup. It was actually the very first soup that I made using my mom’s old recipe book. I was around 12 at the time and I’ve been making this soup ever since.
While there are some shortcuts you can take with chicken noodle soup (store-bought broth, a rotisserie chicken, etc.) it’s really the best when it’s made from scratch with lots of love. Once you enjoy your first spoonful of this at-home recipe, you’ll see exactly what I mean!
Featured Comment
Outstanding! The soup was terrific, but I am really pleased with the broth recipe. I am from the Southwest: looking forward to chicken enchiladas with Spanish rice using these as my prep! Promises to be unbelievable!!! ~Denis
Is Chicken Noodle Soup Healthy?
It’s not just the feeling of comfort that this soup brings, it’s actually loaded with vitamins and nutrients that help your body be strong while it’s fighting the virus. So while the soup can’t actually cure a cold, it will give your body liquids, nutrients, and comfort that it needs to help fight the cold. It all starts with homemade chicken stock, which is made with bone-in chicken and vegetables. Using chicken legs and thighs with bones to make the stock is the best way to get extra flavor and extra nutrients into the soup.
Ingredients That Make this Soup the Best
About Homemade Chicken Stock – Homemade is always the best because you know exactly what goes into the dish. It can be adjusted to your personal taste, and it’s actually cheaper! Homemade stock will truly make your soups taste better and again, it’s easy to keep some in the freezer to use when needed.
Fresh Herbs – Using fresh herbs over dried ones will give your soup strong, fresh taste and aroma. When possible, I always recommend using fresh herbs. If there are leftover herbs, mince and freeze it in freezer bags. You can also keep the bunch of leftover parsley, cilantro, dill weed, and green onion in a cup of water in the refrigerator and use through the week. Just make sure to change the water.
Lemon – A squeeze of fresh lemon juice is a game changer in chicken noodle soup. It enhances all the flavors in the soup and adds a fresh, citrusy touch.
What Type of Noodles In Chicken Noodle Soup?
While egg noodles is the most common and classic pasta in a chicken noodle soup, everyone seems to have their own preference. You can use the egg noodles to keep it classic or choose:
- Tagliatelle pasta (long flat ribbons)
- Shells, elbows, or orecchiette
- Ditalini is a kids favorite at my house (small tubes)
How to Make Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup (Step-by-Step)
Homemade chicken stock is the best base for most soups, especially soups that highlight chicken, like the chicken noodle soup. Best time saving tip is that you can easily prepare it ahead of time and keep some in the freezer for those days when you want to make soup quickly. Besides making the stock, chicken noodle soup only takes 30-40 minutes.
Expert tip: you can also save the chicken meat from cooking the stock. Separate the meat from skin and bones and store it in a separate container in the refrigerator or you can freeze it as well. Separately from the stock.
Cook the veggies: Preheat a large pot over medium-low heat and oil and diced onions, celery, and carrots. Cook vegetables for about 10 minutes and try not to disturb them much so they have time to get a golden-brown sear. This will help develop even more flavor for the soup. Add garlic and cook until garlic is fragrant.
Add chicken: Shred or dice chicken meat saved from cooking the stock and add it to the pot.
Expert tip: if you want to save time or don’t have chicken leftover, rotisserie chicken is a good time-saver.
Cook: Pour in stock, taste and season with salt and pepper. Always taste first, before adding more seasoning! Simmer the soup over medium to medium-low heat for about 15 minutes. Don’t boil, just make sure you’re getting steady but gentle bubbles. Your kitchen will fill with the comforting aroma of chicken and herbs.
Add noodles: add the noodles and fresh herbs. Stir and let the soup cook just until noodles are tender. To estimate the time, check the packaging on the noodles and taste them before taking the pot off heat.
Finish with lemon: As a finishing touch, squeeze in juice from 1 lemon, stir, and serve. (If you’re not sure about the taste, don’t finish the whole soup with lemon but test it on one bowl. Simple squeeze a lemon wedge to one bowl, stir and taste.)
Serving Suggestions
A crusty or artisan baguette, Italian loaf, or sourdough works great with a homemade bowl of soup. I also love to make some buttermilk biscuits or soft, pillowy potato dinner rolls, these are perfect for dipping!
How to Store, Reheat, and Freeze Chicken Noodle Soup
You can freeze all of the soup or a portion of it, just make sure to freeze it without noodles:
- Store leftover soup in a pot you used to cook it if it has a fitted lid or transfer into an air-tight food storage container. Refrigerate for 3-4 days.
- It’s best to get the soup cooled as quickly as possible before freezing or storing. Once it’s cooled to room temperature, portion it into freezer zip-lock bags or plastic containers with air-tight lids. Get the air out and seal.
- Label and date each bag and container and place it in the freezer. If using freezer bags, lay them down on a cutting board to freeze evenly. Freeze for up to 2 months.
- Thaw soup overnight in the refrigerator.
- To reheat thawed soup, pour it into a pot and heat it through over medium heat. Add noodles and cook until noodles are tender.
- To reheat refrigerated soup, I recommend doing it in a small pot on the stove as well. If the noodles absorbed too much liquid, you can always add a splash of chicken stock.
How Do I Help Prevent Noodles From Getting Too Soft?
If you don’t like your noodles to be too soft, cook them al dente and take the soup off heat. Serve the soup right away.
If you are making the whole batch but know you will have leftovers, take out half (or however much you wish to save) of soup from the pot and set it aside to save. Add just enough noodles for the servings you need at the moment and cook the noodles in the remaining soup in the pot.
Save the soup you took out without the noodles. You can cook the noodles in the saved soup when you’re ready to have more.
It’s best to cook the noodles in soup because they will absorb all the flavors, as opposed to making them separately. So, it’s easier to take out half the soup and cook it with noodles another time.
Recipe Variations Worth a Try
One of the most common questions and requests is adding more vegetable variations. Some good vegetables to add include: mushrooms, green beans, leeks, leafy greens like kale or bok choy, peas, or zucchini.
Make it creamy by adding about 1/4 -1/3 cup of heavy whipping cream to add more richness and body to the soup.
If I have a Parmesan rind leftover, I often pop it in a brothy soup like chicken noodle. It will add great flavor to the soup.
More Comforting Soup Recipes
I’ve made a couple of takes on this classic soup that many of my reader sometimes prefer, give my chicken meatball & orzo soup and chicken meatballs soup and try! Italian Wedding Soup is another incredible soup that has many similar flavors but take up a few notches.
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Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 8-9 cups homemade chicken stock
- 2 tbsp avocado or olive oil
- 1 yellow onion
- 2 long celery ribs
- 2 medium carrots
- 4 garlic cloves
- 2-3 cups cooked chicken meat saved from cooking stock
- salt
- fresh cracked black pepper
- 1 tbsp fresh minced parsley
- 1 tbsp fresh minced dill weed
- 1/2-1 lemon – juice only
- 8 oz wide egg noodles
Instructions
Chicken Stock:
- Prepare chicken stock according to the recipe. Chicken stock can easily be made ahead a day before or made ahead and frozen. Make sure to save the chicken meat from cooking the stock. Chicken meat can be frozen as well, in a freezer zip-top bag, separately from the stock.
Chicken Noodle Soup:
- Preheat a large pot over medium-low heat and add oil and diced onions, celery, and carrots. Stir and cook vegetables for about 10 minutes, until softened, and raise the heat to medium.
- Add garlic and cook until garlic is fragrant. Shred or dice chicken meat saved from cooking the stock and add it to the pot.
- Pour in stock and season with salt and pepper. Make sure to always taste as you cook to see if the soup has enough salt.
- Cook the soup over medium heat for about 15 minutes and add noodles and fresh herbs. Stir and let the soup cook just until noodles are tender.
- Squeeze in juice from 1 lemon, stir, and serve.
Video
Notes
- Gluten free note: this soup is completely gluten free is NOT using the egg noodles. Egg noodles are not gluten free but feel free to use your favorite gluten free pasta instead!
- Rotisserie chicken: if you don’t have chicken leftover from stock, you can easily use rotisserie chicken.
- Lemon: DO finish the soup with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, this is a game changer!
- Preserving fresh herbs: You can keep the bunch of leftover parsley, cilantro, dill weed, and green onion in a cup of water in the refrigerator and use through the week. Just make sure to change the water. Or, you can wrap them in damp paper towel and keep them in the refrigerator, closed in a zip-top bag for about a week.
- Storing: store leftovers in an air-tight container, in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. (PRO TIP: Add noodles to the soup during the last few minutes of cooking so they stay tender. If you’re not eating all the soup at one time, the noodles will soak up the broth and become softer. Most people don’t mind softer noodles but if you do, you can cook noodles in chicken stock separately and add them directly to the bowl.)
- Freeze cooled soup without noodles. You can freeze it all in one large portion of break it up into smaller portions. Use freezer friendly bags, leave some space for soup to expand, label and freeze for 2-3 months.
Nutrition
Originally published on Will Cook For Smiles in August 2018.
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Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as most ingredients and brands have variations.
Outstanding! The soup was terrific, but I am really pleased with the broth recipe. I am from the Southwest: looking forward to chicken enchiladas with Spanish rice using these as my prep! Promises to be unbelievable!!!
That sounds amazing! I’m so glad you loved the soup and especially the broth! Using it for chicken enchiladas with Spanish rice sounds absolutely delicious—I bet it will take the flavors to the next level. Enjoy!
It was really good, but didn’t like the dill , I just added just a pinch & I didn’t put lemon in mine, but other than that is was really tasty.
Hello Lois! If you don’t like the dill, definitely don’t use it. Some people don’t like certain herbs like dill or cilantro, and that’s perfectly fine to omit it. Thank you, I’m glad you liked it!
This receipt is amazing! How would I add potatoes? Would these be cooked with the stock?
I’m so sorry this question slipped by me! Do you want to add potatoes instead of pasta? You can cube some potatoes and add them to the pot after the vegetables, before you add the broth and remaining ingredients. Cubed potatoes shouldn’t take too long to cook, so the cook time won’t change much.
I am hoping to make this for a soup dinner benefit soon. How much qt wise does this recipe make? The benefit is selling soups by the qt so I just need to know how much to make. Thank you ☺
This is my 4qt dutch oven in the photos so I would say it makes 3 to 3 1/2 quarts depending on the size you cut the veggies,
I have made this several times and my husband loves it. I add a 21 seasoning and fresh dill. I double up on the noodles and veggies do it stretches further. We usually serve it with fresh baked multigrain bread and butter.
Yum! I am so happy you liked it and make it your own! 🙂