You may be new to making nourishing traditional food recipes for your family, so learning how to make homemade chicken noodle soup is a great, basic, feel-good recipe to get you started. The homemade bone broth used in this recipe is very nourishing and healing. Read why stock/bone broths are so good for us.
Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe
Amounts will vary depending on how many you're feeding. I'll give approximate amounts for a medium-large pot of soup to feed 5-6 with leftovers, but keep in mind that this recipe does NOT have to be exact, just throw in what you have…
Ingredients
- 6 Tablespoons butter pastured butter is best
- 1 organic onion chopped (if you don't have any onion, you could add dried onion or onion powder later)
- A few cloves of garlic chopped (if you don't have fresh garlic, you can add dried garliclater)
- 1 cup or 3-4 organic carrots, chopped
- 1-2 stalks organic celery chopped
- Pastured chicken cooked and cut into bit-sized pieces, about 2 cups or so. Here's where you can find safe, healthy meat if you don't have a good local source. You could use boneless, skinless breasts or any type of chicken you'd like (if you're pressed for time, try it this way!), but my favorite way is to start with a yummy roasted chicken dinner like this: How to bake a whole chicken. When you're done, pick through and get the leftover meat off the bone, and put it in the fridge to use in your soup later.
- Chicken bone broth about 10 cups — from your chicken dinner mentioned above, or if you have some in your freezer, throw that in. Read more about how to make bone broth here: Nourishing Bone Broth for Rookies. (Or here's how to make pressure cooker broth OR if you just don't think you will make it or want some on hand for when you're really crunched for time, try this bone broth — it's 100% grass-fed with a bunch of gelatin, organic ingredients, and it's shelf stable! I love keeping their beef and chicken broth on-hand for quick recipes because they make it just like I do here, and without the nasty msg-like ingredients, additives, or preservatives that store-bought has.)
- 2-4 cups of your favorite pasta cooked. You could use sprouted pasta, spelt pasta, quinoa pasta or rice pasta if you're gluten-free, or my favorite lately, Einkorn pasta — pasta is optional though, this soup is just as good without it!
- Whatever herbs and seasonings you'd like but plenty of sea salt and pepper are most crucial (taste-test to get the amounts right). Also good are oregano, thyme, parsley, about 1 teaspoon each or more to your taste.
- Splash or more of cream optional.
Instructions
- Here's how to make homemade chicken noodle soup…
- Chop your vegetables, assemble your other ingredients. If you're using pasta, start cooking that. In a large soup pot over medium heat, melt the butter and add the onions and garlic. Cook and stir around a couple of minutes, then add the carrots and celery and cook a little more until the vegetables all start to get tender. (What you have here is called a “Mirepoix“.)
- Add bone broth, chicken, pasta, then herbs and seasonings. Now you could add in the garlic or onion if you didn't have fresh. Sometimes I'll add a splash or more of cream to give it another layer of delicious flavor. Simmer on low another 20-30 minutes or longer to let your flavors mesh well, then serve, maybe with some delicious homemade crescent rolls, or another yummy homemade bread!
There you have it, how to make homemade chicken noodle soup! Now you have a superfood to feed your family. This is a dinner that smells so wonderful the whole family will keep asking when it's time to eat.
Many of you have been making homemade soups and broth for much longer than I have, do you make yours differently than I do? Please share your tips!
More you might like:
- Need more help for rookies? Get them my book, Real Food for Rookies!
- Read more about bone broth here: Nourishing Bone Broth for Rookies.
- More poultry recipes with lots of ideas for what else you can do with chicken leftovers
- More soups & stew recipes
- My complete list of recipes
- Here's my FAVORITE snack
- Are you taking your cod liver oil?
Amanda Thomas-Harris says
Nice I’ve been trying to find out the consenus on using organic versus non organic although its much easier to find organic whole chickens as opposed to organic beef bones. Also I’d use some good home cooked rice instead of nasty noodles lol thanks for the recipe I’m gonna do this soon!
KitchenKop says
Sounds AWESOME, Bob, thank you!
bob says
I make chicken stock from raw bones. Everey piece of chicken (except wings) that I buy, I remove the bone first – breasts, legs and thighs. If I have a whole chicken I keep the entire raw carcus. Hearts, gizzards and necks are retained as well. These go into my freezer until I have enough to make stock. I use a 20 quart stock pot. In go the frozen bones. I use distilled water from the market. I add carrots – usually 3 lbs – a giant onion or two, several stalks of celery – all roughly cut. I add fresh parsley, bay leaves, a sprig or two of thyme, 25 – 50 whole peppercorns, fresh oregano, and 3- 4 cloves of fresh garlic. Oh and of course 2 -3 tablespoons of kosher salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer for 5 – 6 hours. I usually add back more distilled water to make up for evaporative losses except for the last 2 hours. This is when I add 2 whole chicken breasts sans the skin. I use this meat in the stock. After all is cooked completely, I remove the good chicken meat, save as many of the carrots as possible (usually removed along the way during cooking cause they disintegrate otherwise) and remove as much of the bones and other goodies as possible. I then strain the stock through a cheesecloth (or two) through a screen into another stock pot. This stock must then be cooled as quickly as possible to 45 degrees F or below ( I do this by putting the pot into my long term storage freezer). When it is below 45 F I maintain temperature by storing in my refrigerature at least overnight until all fat has accumulated on top of stock for easy removal. This leaves the most gel’ed chicken stock you have ever made in your life. Then use this chicken stock elixir anyway you like!!!
KitchenKop says
Thanks for letting us know, Cathy, I updated the post!! 🙂
Cathy says
Cooked chicken bones are the WORST thing ever you can feed a dog — they splinter and can choke and kill them. Please let your readers know.
suze says
After I make chicken stock, the bones do not splinter — I can easily crush into mush between two fingers. I wonder if they would be OK for dogs/cats in that case?
KitchenKop says
I have no idea… Hopefully someone else will jump in to answer…
Maeve says
The bones *will* splinter when the animal bites down on them- like tiny shards from a broken plastic Easter egg. When I was a girl one of our dogs died from internal bleeding after getting a hold of some chicken bones. If your bones actually turn mushy – with absolutely no bone shards, then I would think that would be okay. However, I am not a vet! 😉
Kelly says
Good idea, Susan. Another option would be brown rice noodles, but I think they’re icky. I love the brown rice idea from Lyn, though, I’m doing that from now on. Kids like it, too. 🙂
Susan says
There is a healthy way to enjoy noodles in your soup! I love reading from the WAPF site and there is a recipe for sourdough noodles. Here is the link: https://westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/sourdough_egg_noodles.html
Julie says
I just got my quarterly magazine from the WPF the other day. The cover always has “broth is beautiful” as part of the caption around the picture. Broth IS beautiful !
Kelly says
Jen, GREAT IDEA! Especially now that I have a bigger crock pot.
Kelly
Jen says
Have you ever thought about making your broth in a crockpot? That way it can cook overnight without interruption. I put mine on high a couple of hours then reduce the heat to low. I cook it for about 24 hours and it turns out great.
Kelly says
Hi Lisa,
Thanks, ya big sweetie! 🙂
Kelly
Lisa says
Hi Kelly,
Just nominated you for “Best Topical Weblog” — Ninth Annual Weblog Awards for 2009. I hope some of your other readers will too!
Have a great weekend!!
Kelly says
Lyn, LOVE that idea!
Beth, good questions! Although I don’t know most of the answers! I’ll take some guesses though…
Yes, if you don’t have access to pastured chickens, it’s still better than none. Different nutrients from beef stock vs. chicken stock? Yes, I’ll bet there is, but the biggies are the same: the gelatin and minerals.
Are some bones “better” than others…I don’t know, but I would guess they’d be the same….anyone else know this??
Kelly
Beth says
Hi Kelly,
If we don’t have pastured or organic chickens it’s still nourishing and better than not doing it, right? I’m about to go on a broth binge 🙂 and was debating whether to only do beef because I have access to grass-fed organic beef or whether to also do chicken although it’s not organic or pastured (although I believe all ckn now has no “added” hormones or antibiotics). I’m thinking that you get different nutrients from chicken than beef (although many of the same) and that I should flip-flop between both.
What do you think?
Also, are some chicken bone parts better than others for this? If I get thighs (read: cheaper) instead of breasts would the nutrition from the bones be the same?
As always your timing is right on the mark.
Thanks!
Beth
Lyn says
Try throwing a cup or so of brown rice into the pot while it’s simmering. That’s a great alternative to the starchy, white noodles!!