After a nearly two month hiatus from this blog, you were probably expecting something a little grander than Chicken Noodle soup upon my return.   I was too, but in the end chicken noodle soup seemed to be the more honest choice.

It’s not that I haven’t been cooking.  Since I last wrote, I roasted no less than 10 beef tenderloins, baked off more than 60 molten chocolate cakes, and peeled way too many shrimp as part of the FOOD LOVE holiday catering season.  At home, we hosted family for Thanksgiving and Christmas and then said goodbye to 2016 with a party for friends that involved the making of about 8 gallons of gumbo.

Along the way, simple meals like this soup and our well-stocked freezer kept us fed. On a side note, a freezer, full of food, is a wonderful thing. And then, after weeks of plunging into its icy depths to retrieve bags of chili, spaghetti sauce, and frozen cuts of meat, it becomes something less than wonderful. But I digress.

No matter how much you love to cook, it’s good to have easy recipes like this one for when life is busy.  For this soup, you’ll need about ten minutes to chop up the vegetables and then everything goes into a pot to slowly cook while you pursue other things. It’s good and a cinch to get on the table. Don’t believe it’s that simple.  Click on the image above to see me demonstrating how to make this classic soup on WCNC’s Charlotte Today show.

Hearty Chicken Noodle Soup – Printer Friendly Recipe
Serves 6

This comforting soup is not only easy, but economical as buying a whole chicken is less expensive than buying pre-cut pieces.  The whole chicken with its bones turns water into a flavorful, hefty broth as it cooks that is much tastier and more economical than purchasing store-bought chicken stock.

1 (4 to 4-1/2 lb) whole chicken, giblets removed
3 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
3 celery stalks, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 Turkish bay leaf
3 fresh thyme sprigs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt, more to taste
3 quarts (12 cups) cold water
1 1/2 cups Rotini noodles
Freshly ground black pepper
Garnish: chopped fresh flat leaf parsley (optional)

Combine the chicken, carrots, celery, onion, bay leaf, thyme sprigs and salt in a large stockpot or Dutch oven.  Add the water.

Slowly bring to a boil.  Cover and reduce the heat to a simmer.  Cook for one hour until the chicken is cooked through.  Carefully remove the chicken from the pot and set it on a baking sheet to cool.

While the chicken cools, add the noodles to the pot and return to a strong simmer.

Once the chicken is cool enough to touch, pick the chicken from the bone and shred it into pieces.  You can save the chicken skin and use it in the soup although I prefer to discard it with the bones.

Add the shredded chicken back to the pot and continue to cook until the noodles are tender.  Remove the thyme sprigs from the soup and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Stir in chopped parsley, if desired, and serve immediately.