Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
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Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup from scratch just like my mom taught me. This soup is healthy and perfect for a cold winter night or when you’re feeling sick. The best kind of comfort food there is.
The Best Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe
Chicken noodle soup was something that was on our dinner table pretty much every Sunday, while growing up. My mom would always make it from scratch, there was no question about it.
The idea of ordering take out or making it from a mix or something was unheard of. Even to this day when I think of what to make for dinner on Sundays, chicken noodle soup with roasted chicken and potatoes is what always comes to mind.
Chicken soup must be made from scratch. And for that you need a whole chicken, no ifs ands or buts about it. You need a whole chicken with skin and bones and all. The meat and bones give the stock so much flavor and dimension, as well as all that sick day relief. I like to pack mine full of chopped carrots, celery, and super soft egg noodles.
Why You’ll Love This Chicken Noodle Soup
- Simple Recipe! This easy one-pot soup is totally made from scratch with basic ingredients, nearly cooks itself for most of the recipe, and is ready in just over an hour!
- Homestyle Healthy Deliciousness! Made with wholesome ingredients like nutrient-dense fresh vegetables and a whole chicken this soup is both super tasty and good for you.
- Perfect Make Ahead Meal! Soup is always better the next day once the flavors have even more time to meld. This recipe can easily be made on a Sunday night for a Tuesday dinner or stored in the freezer for months later.
- Veggies – Just the classic 3 today: carrot, celery, and onion. You could add some garlic for some garlic flavor, but this is not something my mom every added to chicken noodle soup.
- Herbs – Fresh parsley is all we need today. If dry is all you have on hand that will work just fine as well just keep in mind that 1 teaspoon dried equals 1 tablespoon fresh. Other herbs you can use are fresh thyme, rosemary, or a bay leaf.
- Chicken – Bones, skin, meat and all. We need all those parts that are usually considered scraps to develop a rich broth. You can boil the chicken whole, which is what my mom always did but I cut it up into pieces. If you don’t have a whole chicken you can use a combination of chicken breasts, chicken thighs or drumsticks.
- Chicken bouillon – This ingredient is essentially just dehydrated broth that will pack so much flavor and umami into our soup. You can use either the cube or the powder. My mom always used vegeta though, which is a very European all purpose food seasoning.
- Liquids – We need liquid in our pot so we’re going to use water. We’re going to combine this with the bouillon cube to ensure maximum chicken flavor.
- Noodles – I like to use egg noodle for my this recipe. Some people like to use fusilli or rice noodles, if that’s the case just adjust noodle cook time according to package instructions.
- Seasoning – Salt and pepper, adjust for taste!
This is one of those recipes that tastes impressively good like it took hours to make, but actually didn’t! In fact, all you have to do for this chicken soup is add some noodles once you boil a whole chicken and some veggies. It’s super easy and super delicious!
Prep Your Broth
You will need to cook the chicken and vegetables to make the chicken stock for the soup. But first, you need to get everything into the pot. So remove the bag of gizzards from the inside of the whole chicken. Then put the raw chicken in a large stockpot or Dutch oven that will hold at least 5 quarts.
Next, add enough water to the pot to cover the chicken. Then add the whole onion, whole carrots, and celery sticks to the pot making sure there is still enough water to cover the vegetables.
Skim The Broth
Now that everything is in the pot, bring it to a boil over medium-high heat. Yet, as it begins to boil you will start to notice a dirty foam forming around the pot, which is totally normal. However, for a nice and clear broth, you’ll need to skim that foam from the top using a skimmer and keep removing the foam until there is none left.
Cook The Chicken And Veggies
Once the foam has been completely skimmed from the top, turn the heat down to medium-low. Then cover the pot with a lid and allow the soup to simmer for about an hour or until the vegetables are fork tender and the chicken is almost falling off the bone.
Remove The Chicken And Veggies
When the chicken is fully cooked, carefully remove it from the pot along with the veggies. Then set them both aside to cool for a bit. Also, at this point, if there is too much chicken broth in the pot you can ladle some of it out and store it in the fridge in an airtight container or jar for later use.
Shred The Chicken And Cut The Veggies
While the chicken is still cooling, chop up the cooked carrots and celery and then put them back into the pot with the broth. Next, use a fork to shred some meat from the chicken. But before you do, you may want to consider how much broth you have and how much chicken you want in your soup. I normally use about half of the chicken and then save the rest for other recipes. But you can use as much chicken as you like.
Add The Noodles
This is the best part of any classic chicken noodle soup recipe! Add the dry noodles to the pot along with the chicken bouillon or vegeta. Then taste your broth and season with salt and pepper as needed. Now, cook the soup on medium heat for another 5 to 10 minutes or until the noodles are fully cooked. Note, be careful not to add too many noodles because they do expand quite a bit as they cook and even more the longer they sit in the broth.
Finish The Soup
When the noodles are finished cooking, taste your soup for salt one last time and season it if needed. But only if needed! How much salt you will add depends on the amount that was added by the bouillon as well as your personal preference.
Serve And Enjoy
Ladle the delicious homemade chicken noodle soup into a bowl, top with a sprinkle of fresh chopped parsley, and serve with some saltine crackers.
Got Leftover Chicken?
Use this recipe to make the best chicken salad ever! No leftovers or scraps go to waste in my kitchen.
Other Cooking Options
You don’t just have to make this hearty, good for the soul soup on the stove top, you can most definitely make it with some of the other kitchen gadgets you have lying around.
Crockpot
Set it and forget it! This recipe is super minimal effort required and can be made while you’re busy at work, just follow my recipe right here on the blog for chicken noodle soup in the crock pot.
Pressure cooker
Chicken noodle soup in under 15 minutes? And I’m not talking any of that pre made stuff, no I mean the real flu fighting deal. Whip it up in my flash with my recipe here.
Expert Tips
- Chicken noodle soup is such a great base for some awesome flavors! You can add fresh dill at the end, or add diced parsnips to your broth for some complexity. Dried rosemary also makes a great savory addition.
- Feel free to brown your chicken, bones, skin and all before adding to the pot for some added richness and depth.
- If you use dried herbs keep in mind that they are more flavor concentrated than fresh, one tablespoon of fresh equals one teaspoon of dried.
Leftovers
Homemade chicken noodle soup will last 3 – 4 days in the fridge in an airtight container.
Freezing
This recipe freezes amazingly as well! Just be sure to pack up to store before adding any noodles as they tend to turn mushy when thawed. Stored in an airtight container this soup will stay fresh frozen for 4 – 6 months. Just thaw it overnight in it’s container in the fridge before reheating on the stove.
Other Delicious Soup Recipes To Try
- Instant Pot Chicken and Dumplings
- Chicken and Dumplings
- Red Lentil and Chicken Soup
- Matzo Ball Soup
- Italian Wedding Soup
- Minestrone Soup
- Chicken Potato Soup
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Ingredients
- 4 pound whole chicken (with skin and bones)
- 2 medium carrots (peeled)
- 1 medium onion (skin removed)
- 2 stalks celery
- 4 quarts water
- 2 cups egg noodles (dry, about 4 oz)
- 1 chicken bouillon cube (or 1 tbsp vegeta)
- 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
- 1 teaspoon pepper (or to taste)
- ¼ cup parsley (fresh, chopped)
Before You Begin! If you make this, please leave a review and rating letting us know how you liked this recipe! This helps our business thrive & continue providing free recipes.
Instructions
- Remove the bag of gizzards from the inside. Place the chicken in a big soup pot, you'll need at least a 5 qt pot, and add enough water to cover the chicken. Add the whole onion, whole carrots and celery sticks to the pot. Make sure there's enough water to cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
- Once it comes to a boil, you will notice a dirty foam floating around the top of the pot, use a skimmer to skim that out. This will ensure that you get a clear soup. Keep skimming the foam until there’s no more left. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover with a lid and cook for about 1 hour, the carrots should be fork tender and the chicken cooked through, and almost falling off the bone.
- Carefully remove the chicken from the soup pot and let it cool for a few minutes until it's cool enough so that you can pull the meat from it. Remove the carrots, celery and onion from the soup pot as well. If you have too much broth in the pot you can now ladle some out to a jar or airtight container for later use and store it in the fridge.
- Chop up the carrots and celery and add it back to the soup. Shred some meat from the chicken, I used the meat from half the chicken, but feel free to use all the meat, especially if you have a lot of broth, then add the shredded chicken back to the soup pot.
- Add the dry noodles to the pot, and the chicken bouillon or vegeta. Taste for seasoning and adjust with salt and pepper as needed.
- Cook for another 5 to 10 minutes until noodles are cooked through. Be careful to not add too many noodles because as the soup sits they will expand and soak up a lot of the broth.
- Garnish with parsley and serve.
Equipment
Notes
- What do I do with leftover chicken: Use this recipe to make the best chicken salad ever!
- Homemade chicken noodle soup will last 3 – 4 days in the fridge in an airtight container.
- This recipe freezes amazingly as well! Just be sure to pack up to store before adding any noodles as they tend to turn mushy when thawed. Stored in an airtight container this soup will stay fresh frozen for 4 – 6 months. Just thaw it overnight in it’s container in the fridge before reheating on the stove.
Nutrition Information
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
Originally posted April, 2011.
These pictures are so beautiful, it makes me want to get sort of sick so I can eat a bunch of chicken soup! Just kidding, of course. I just got some chicken to make soup – I use pinwheels (legs and thighs) and then add in some chicken breast meat that’s already been roasted and shredded after the boiling process. I also add some frozen peas – to each his own, right? When we’re down to the last couple of bowls of the soup, I add some cheese to it to make it a little different. Speaking of soup, have you ever come across a good recipe for Philly Cheesesteak Soup? I had some once at a supper club up in Wisconsin and it was SO good. Maybe we should challenge ourselves to come up with a recipe. Or maybe you could because your recipes are all really good! We always love the hardiness of them. Tonight, we’re having your Chicken Pot Pie Pasta – sounds wonderful.
Oh, I love the sound of Philly Cheesesteak Soup!! Challenge accepted! 🙂
This is such a great soup! I like to keep my noodles separate. Placing them in my soup bowl and spooning the soup over the top. After the second day of the soup, I will strain it and freeze the broth for future use as the base of another soup or sauce.
I often use the scraps and bones from rotisserie chicken to make broth/stock
Can we use rotisserie chicken?
If you use rotisserie chicken you won’t get the same benefits and flavor from the soup as cooking the whole raw chicken in the broth. You’re developing lots of flavor by cooking the chicken with skin and bones.
adding store-bought bouillon cubes to a scratch soup recipe??? the whole point of making the soup from scratch is that bouillon is not necessary! in my opinion this is no longer a ‘from scratch’ recipe once one of your core flavour sources is coming from some processed cube out of a package
I can see where the confusion comes from! This is a homemade chicken noodle soup recipe- not a homemade chicken stock or broth recipe. Noodle soups often come from a can. Feel free to use homemade stock or broth if you have it on hand.
Wesley, I agree. What I find objectionable about most bouillon cubes and granules is that they are mostly chemicals and additives. Just read the label! Also, one hour isn’t enough cooking time for max flavor to develop. I prefer Ina Garten’s recipe for chicken stock. 100% homemade and delicious, although she throws away the chicken after making the stock. I find that a little too wasteful.
Hello looks great. Do you have a Low Sodium version? I am making lots of low sodium recipes for my Mother who is a heart patient and 85 years old.
I would use 4qt no sodium chicken broth instead of water and not use any bouillon. Of course, cut down on the salt added or none at all. Enjoy!
I made it and I loved it. I added more spices and herbs instead of the Vegeta and also a big handful of fresh spinach at the end. I think I’ll definitely make this again
I was wondering if you could tell me what kind or brand of noodles you use? They look really good but I’m not sure I’m familiar with them. Thanks!
They’re just generic brand egg noodles from Sobey’s!
I made your recipe for my first attempt at homemade chicken soup. This soup was amazing! Maybe almost as good as my Nonny’s (she adds homemade baby meatballs). I added a little garlic and left the onions in large pieces to be easily removed by the kids. Garnished with the parsley and parmesan cheese. Thank you for the great recipe, which will now become an easy go to meal for even the pickiest members of our family.
I’m so happy to hear this, Dawn! 🙂
How do you roast a chicken that you’ve boiled? Am I reading this wrong?
No, you’re reading it right. Just put it in a roasting pan and roast it at 400 F degrees until it’s golden brown. Shouldn’t take too long since it’s already cooked inside.
Loved it! Thanks for sharing!
Very nutritious and easy recipe which is no doubt very delicious 😋
What I do once the Chicken is boiled, I use a slotted spoon to remove the bones/meat. I strain the broth into large soup containers to remove sediment and loose bits. I let it cool, I refrigerate the broth to solidify the fat to scrap off the next day. The bones, skin and grisle is tossed and the meat is refrigerated to use the next day.
You can also add parsnip and celery root. Cabbage leaves work good too. I like to add fresh parsley and dill (dry are ok if you dont have them).
I like to put my chicken in boiling water first and cook for 2-5 min. Rinse, add clean water and vegetables. This should remove all the foam. Make sure to cook your soup uncovered so it doesn’t get cloudy.
For a bit of spicyness you can add 1 jalapeno pepper (seeds removed).
Garnish with fresh parsley or dill.
Your recipe is the OLD FASHIONED way, I know because my mother taught me this recipe about 55years ago and yes you can add a cabbage leaf. Thank You for the info. Will make a pot tomorrow and enjoy it anytime.
Sometimes the good old ways from the good old days still work…glad to hear you are going to make a pot of soup and enjoy. Something about homemade chicken noodle soup soothes the soul….