My Homemade chicken dumpling soup!
Made the old fashioned way by boiling a whole chicken, you can toss in any vegetables, noodles or pasta & dumplings and it’s going to be amazing. And everybody knowns Chicken Soup is the best soup for a cold!
NUTRITION INFORMATION:
Serving: 464gCalories: 277kcal (14%)Carbohydrates: 32g (11%)Protein: 22g (44%)Fat: 7g (11%)Saturated Fat: 1g (6%)Cholesterol: 60mg (20%)Sodium: 563mg (24%)Potassium: 669mg (19%)Fiber: 2g (8%)Sugar: 3g (3%)Vitamin A: 3525IU (71%)Vitamin C: 5.1mg (6%)Calcium: 48mg (5%)Iron: 1.7mg (9%)
How to make this good old fashioned chicken noodle soup
Yes there’s more steps than quick and easy chicken noodle soup recipes, but it is so worth it because this broth is something money can’t buy!
Simmer (don’t boil!) a whole chicken with broth flavourings (celery, carrot, garlic, peppercorns, herbs) for 1.5 hours to 2 hours until the flesh is tender enough to shred without effort;Remove scum that floats to the surface once or twice;
Remove the chicken and the carrot etc;
Shred the chicken. You’ll need just under half for this recipe, save the rest for other uses;
Make it even healthier – and the broth even clearer! Refrigerate the broth so the fat hardens on the surface, then scoop it off.
Sauté onion, garlic, carrot and celery slowly – The slower, the better! The vegetables become sweeter with a more intense flavour;
Add homemade broth and noodles. Once the noodles are almost cooked, toss the chicken back in just to heat up;
Serve!
Best pasta for Chicken Noodle Soup
You can use any type of noodles or pasta for Chicken Noodle Soup. Short twisted egg noodles and pasta shapes are ideal – for ease of eating.
I tend to use whatever I have. For long straight pastas like fettuccine (which is what I used because I had it), just break them into 3 or 4 pieces for ease of eating.
Ingredients
HOMEMADE BROTH:
1.8 kg / 3.5 lb whole chicken , rinsed and cleaned, the best quality you can afford (Note 1)1 head of garlic , cut in half horiztonally
2 carrots , cut into chunks
2 celery ribs , cut into chunks
2 onions , peeled and cut into quarters
1 tbsp black peppercorns
2 bay leaves , fresh or dried
4 thyme sprigs (or 1 1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves)
9 - 10 cups (2.25L) water
SOUP:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion , diced
3 garlic cloves , minced
2 medium carrots , cut in quarters lengthwise then chopped
2 celery ribs , cut into 1 cm/ 1/2" thick pieces
2 cups shredded chicken (from homadme broth)
2 litres / 2 quarts homemade chicken broth (above)
200 g/ 6 oz egg noodles or pasta of choice (Note 3)
2 - 3 tsp Vegeta or other stock powder (Note 4)
1/2 tsp black pepper
4 thyme sprigs , optional
1 bay leaf , optional
1 tsp Gourmet Vega
Finely chopped parsley , for garnish (optional)
Dumplings (optional):
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon margarine
1/2 cup milk
Add all ingredients to list
Directions:
Cook
15 m
Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in medium size bowl. Cut in butter until crumbly. Stir in milk to make a soft dough.
Drop by spoonfuls into boiling stew. Cover and simmer 15 minutes without lifting lid. Serve.
To make parsley dumplings, add 1 tablespoon parsley flakes to the dry ingredients.
Nutrition Facts:
Per Serving: 105 calories; 2.4 g fat; 18 g carbohydrates; 2.8 g protein; 2 mg cholesterol; 386 mg sodium. Full nutrition
How to ensure your soup broth is clear
One of the things we all love about a great chicken noodle soup is how clear the broth is. Transparent – yet full of flavour! There’s a few tricks to the clear broth:
Simmer the chicken really gently. Harder boil gets the chicken jiggling around = murkier brothScoop the scum off the surface (#2 in photo below);
Let the broth settle (or refrigerate overnight). You’ll find that the bottom of the broth becomes darker as “stuff” settles on the base of the pot. Then gently pour the broth into the soup pot, leaving behind the darker broth that settled to the bottom of the pot;
Don’t brown the sautéed onion, carrots and celery. Brown veggies = brown broth!
Don’t stir the pasta while it boils. That activates the starch in the pasta, making the broth cloudier.
