Homemade Chicken Soup
With noodles or matzoh balls this lush, rich flavored broth with chicken and vegetables is not just Jewish penicillin, but a deeply comforting and enjoyable meal.
Homemade Chicken Soup
Chicken soup is made in two stages —Stage One: Make a rich chicken brothStage Two: Make a lush chicken soup
Ingredients
Stock
- 1 whole chicken - 3 ½ lbs
- 3 qts low sodium chicken broth
- 2 carrots - roughly chopped
- 2 celery ribs - roughly chopped
- 1 onion - halved or quartered
- 5 whole peppercorns
- 1 clove garlic - crushed
- 2 sprigs parsley
- 2 sprigs thyme
- 1 bay leaf
Soup
- 2 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 4 carrots - sliced into ¼ pieces
- 2 stalks celery - sliced into ¼ pieces
- 2 onions - sliced into ¼ pieces
- 4 leeks - sliced into ¼ pieces, tops and root ends removed
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
- 8 sprigs parsley - coarsely chopped
- 3 cups medium egg noodles - boil until al dente in water so as not to absorb the broth when you add them.
- matzoh balls - could be substituted for the noodles (optional) (see my recipe)
Instructions
Stock
- Put the chicken and the chicken broth in a large stockpot and set it over a medium heat.
- Add the roughly chopped carrots, celery and onion.
- Add the peppercorns, garlic, sprigs of parsley, and thyme, bay leaf, and depending on the size of your pot, enough water to cover. The broth is enough in my pot.
- Bring the broth to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook the chicken until it is very tender – about 1¼ hours – skimming the surface periodically. We will remove the excess fat more thoroughly, later.
- Remove the chicken to a large bowl to cool.
- Strain the broth through a very fine sieve lined with cheese cloth into a large clean bowl or stockpot. Discard the vegetables.
- After the broth has cooled to room temperature, place into the refrigerator overnight so that the chicken fat hardens on the surface making it easy to remove with a slotted spoon.
Making the Soup
- Remove the skin from the chicken, pulling off the meat before discarding the bones. I like to hand pull apart the breast meat and from the wings and legs so that the pieces are of irregular sizes.
- Melt the butter in a large dutch oven over medium heat.
- Add the vegetables and cook until the onions are translucent – about 7 minutes.
- Add the chicken, the reserved broth, salt and pepper. Simmer the soup until the vegetables are tender, about 1 hour. Stir in the chopped parley.
- Bring another pot of water to a boil and cook the noodles until al dente, they will continue to cook in the soup and you don't want them too mushy. By cooking the noodles separately, you can retain all that rich broth as soup. Otherwise, some of it gets absorbed by the noodles making the soup too thick.
- Instead of noodle you can make matzoh balls. (see my recipe)
- Add the noodles to the soup and ladle into bowls.
Notes
Whatever soup is left after serving can be put into containers later and frozen.
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