Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken Stock/Broth – A good quality stock or broth is the backbone of the entire dish. My homemade chicken stock is a great choice here, but any decent quality broth from the store works well too. If you use a concentrated/condensed stock, you’ll want to water it down. If you go with a store-bought broth, I highly recommend a no salt added or low sodium option.

Chicken – Boneless-skinless chicken breasts or thighs are the best options for soup, or even a mix of both. Read the next section for more information.

Mirepoix – The same vegetable for making chicken stock also work great for the soup. A mix of onion, carrot, and celery are the basis for many soups in Western cuisine. I don’t use it in my stock, but here I add minced garlic. Other great options for chicken soup are potatoes, leeks, spinach, peas, corn, and I’ve even seen pumpkin.

Herbs – Repeating the same herbs from chicken stock work well here also: fresh thyme, parsley, bay leaves. Swap out the peppercorns for ground pepper though. Other options include rosemary, dill, chives, cilantro, etc.

Noodles – You could leave the noodles out altogether and still have a great soup that’s gluten-free or use a GF noodle. One of the most popular choices for chicken noodle soup, however, are egg noodles. A good, wide egg noodle works great, and they’re fairly easy to make from scratch as well if you’re up for it. Any type of pasta works well though, I’ve seen it made with spaghetti, vermicelli, linguini, spaetzle, orzo, spiral noodles, ditalini, acini de pepe, and pastina. If the last 3 are unfamiliar, they’re the tiny types of pasta you might see in minestrone and Italian wedding soups.

Salt – This will vary a lot depending on the stock/broth that you use. If you’re using an unsalted stock or broth, you’ll probably add at least a teaspoon of salt if not more. If using a regular broth that’s not low sodium, you may not need to add any. Taste as you go.

Lemon Juice – Optional, but added at the end, lemon juice can give the soup a nice pop of acid and freshness that really brightens up all the flavors.

In a large pot, melt the butter or heat the oil (whichever you prefer to use) and cook the vegetables until softened.

Add the garlic and herbs except for the parsley and cook another minute until fragrant.

Pour in the stock/broth and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Submerge the chicken and cook, covered, until the chicken is cooked through.

Remove the chicken and allow it to cool. Add the noodles to the pot and cook, uncovered until the pasta is al dente.

While cooking the noodles, shred the chicken. When the noodles are about done, add the chicken back into the pot.

Remove from heat and stir in the parsley and lemon juice, add more salt and pepper to taste if needed, and serve.

Once cooled completely, the soup can be stored in an airtight container in your refrigerator for 4-5 days or frozen up to 3 months.

If you plan on making the soup ahead of time, or plan to make plenty of leftovers, you may want to cook and store the noodles separately. The pasta, especially egg noodles, soak up a lot of flavors and make soup taste even better… however, they soak up A LOT of liquid as well as flavor. If you store for more than a day or two in the fridge, the noodles can end up soaking in a lot of the broth. They don’t tend to keep well in the freezer either.