SK week 43 | Chicken Noodle Soup

I have a decent recipe for chicken noodle soup, but it's pretty basic and just uses store-bought broth (which is actually just fine), but I wanted to try this one. (Deb also has this recipe, but it was a little more involved and I didn't feel like devoting that much time to this). ;)

(Here's the Smitten Kitchen post)

You'll need:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
3 pounds of chicken pieces
8 cups water
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons salt
pepper
1 large carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
3 ounces dry noodles
1 tablespoon fresh parsley or dill, chopped

(Just a note on my amounts, I did 1 1/2 times the recipe and that was a good amount of soup for our family of four soup-eaters--my 4 1/2 pounds of chicken was three gigantic bone-in breasts, and I only used the meat of one for the soup--the others are in my fridge for chicken salad or something).

Get your oil in a pan and sauté the onion for a few minutes. Then make some room on the bottom of the pan and get your chicken pieces in there too. Cook for about 10 minutes. I flipped mine once and then just kept moving them around so things didn't stick or burn.

Then add the water, bay leaf, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes. (These gigantic chicken breasts took closer to 30). Remove the chicken pieces to a cutting board and strain the broth into another pot (or into a bowl and then return it to the same pot--I purposely used a larger pot for making the broth so things weren't crowded, and I used a smaller pot for making the soup).

Voila--my strained broth. (If you're picky about the oil, you could let it come to room temperature or stick it in the fridge so that it solidifies, and then remove the fat before proceeding. I didn't care, nor did I have time for that).

Bring back to a boil and add the veggies and noodles. Cook until those are done. Stir in the parsley or dill. (My "usual" chicken noodle soup recipe calls for dill, so I went parsley this time).

Once the veggies and noodles are cooked, stir in the chicken and check your seasonings. I added a little more salt, but I was actually pretty impressed with the flavor. I've never had great luck making broth just from bones, so I think using actual chicken pieces (and browning them first) really helped.

Serve up with some crusty bread and pray that it helps your stupid cough/cold!

Verdict: Everyone loved it. :) Jack asked if I would make this one again or stick with my other one. And I think it depends on how much time I want to spend on it! The other one comes together SO quickly, but this was kind of a fun process too. So I'm glad to have both in my repertoire. :)