Chicken Noodle Soup

Made for our special little friends, who may fear soup or vegetables, but still need to be cured of head colds.

Required Ingredients

• Whole pre-cooked rotisserie chicken (cold is fine)
• Celery
• Onion
• Garlic
• Salt & Pepper
• noodles (any shape, I like bowtie)

Optional Ingredients

• Chili powder
• Jalapeno
• Bell Peppers
• Corn
• Carrots
• Other vegetables. Zucchini, yellow squash, more onions, broccoli... whatever.

Process

PHASE 1: CHICKEN STOCK

(This is also useful in other recipes)

1. Pick all of the edible meat off the chicken. Refrigerate it, you'll need this later.


2. Take a large pot or crock pot or instant pot and load in the entire remains of the chicken after step 1, bones and skin and all.


3. Also add to this pot the onion and celery. They will be strained out, you don't have to eat them. Maybe don't mention this step to the severely veggie averse, but they are critical for flavor.


4. Cover everything currently in the vessel with water. Season generously with salt, pepper, and garlic, optionally chili powder (helps melt the snot from a cold)


5. Boil the living daylights out of it. If using a standard stove-top pot, boil for a minimum of three hours, adding more water as necessary to keep everything submerged. In a crock pot, 8 hours or more on low. In an instant pot, 2 hours or more at high pressure.


6. VERY CAREFULLY position the strainer over the secondary large vessel. Strain the broth into the large vessel, discarding all chunks of errant vegetables and chicken carcass. The juice is the important part.

END PHASE 1

It is acceptable to stop here and have the chicken stock frozen or kept in the fridge for later use, in this recipe or others.

BEGIN PHASE 2: SOUP

1. Load the broth back into the original pot it was cooked in


2. Add back the chicken meat and any vegetables you are using. The veggies can be pre-cooked in a pan for a texture, or simply boiled into submission. For a stove-top pot, fifteen minutes tops back on the heat. For a crock pot, leave it on low for fifteen minutes or so. An instant pot should be fine by itself, but maybe pre-cook the veggies for this one.


3. Prepare the noodles separately, in plain (but salted, just not chicken broth) water, according to the directions on the box. Any noodles will work. Even gluten free ones.


4. Serve generously, adding noodles to the soup only in the bowl. Store them separately. Combining them only results in a very sad and squashy version of chicken pasta where everything is boiled and the noodles are mush.