I’m not sure why but it never fails that I crave soup when we have rainy days. Maybe it’s because I’m cooped up in the house all day, or maybe I just look for an excuse to play in the kitchen!! Whatever the reason, I love having the time to slow cook a hearty and delicious soup!
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So, what do you do if you want a soup but don’t have all day to cook it?? Don’t worry, it’s not a requirement to take all day for this bowl of creamy yumminess! Not only can this dish help pass a rainy day, it’s also an easy peasy after work dinner when you use leftovers or a rotisserie chicken from your local grocery store!
Jump to RecipeToday I decided to break down a whole chicken I had on hand. Cutting up the chicken helps speed up the cook time but it’s not necessary, cook it whole if you prefer. Either way, leave the skin on so that you don’t lose the flavor that will be rendered while roasting. Season the meat generously with salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder then place them in a roaster/skillet without crowding the pieces. Set the chicken to roast at 425˚ until fully cooked, approximately 45 minutes. NOTE: If using a store bought rotisserie, keep the drippings in the container! If you throw it away, you’ll be throwing flavor down the drain!
Okay, so you have the chicken in the oven, what to do, what to do? Well, one thing you can do is start getting that soup base ready. If using a whole chicken that you cut into pieces: remove the back bone, cover with water in your stockpot, add the dry seasonings, and bring to a simmer. With a store bought rotisserie chicken: pull the meat off the bones, discard the skin, cover the bones with water in your stockpot, add dry seasonings and bring to a simmer. I usually simmer it until my chicken has cooked, cooled and been deboned. This allows the base to simmer a good hour to help pull all the flavor out of those bones. NOTE: If you choose to roast your chicken whole, you’ll have to wait until the chicken is cooked, cooled, and deboned before starting your base.
While your house begins to fill with the roasting scent of deliciousness, start getting the veggies chopped. I like to see the onions and celery so they are chopped fairly on the larger side. Of course, your carrots will be chopped in bite size pieces. Now, I just want to throw this out there, this recipe could absolutely include sweet peas and be tasty, I choose to leave them out because my family doesn’t care for them. Sometimes I don’t know how I love them so much when that fact comes to light!!
You’ll notice I use an oven safe AND stove top safe pan with a flat roasting rack to kick start this dish, and here’s why.
Look at all that golden flavor! 
Let’s get that gift of goodness up, shall we!
By using a roaster or skillet that is oven and stove top friendly, you lose NOTHING from the chicken. Just remove the meat and roasting rack, heat over medium fire, add onions and celery, and stir. The water that is released from the veggies will allow you to get all the bits of flavor up! Once the onions start turning tender, add a splash of your favorite white wine or chicken stock. Adding a liquid keeps your veggies from ‘browning’ and starts building your flavor profile.
Once cool enough, remove (and discard) the skin, debone the chicken and set the meat aside. Take the bones and add to the water your simmering with the back bone. Bring this to a hard boil, adding water if necessary, for about 15 minutes.
Being extremely careful, strain the soup base through cheesecloth or a fine woven piece of linen. Return the strained liquid to your stockpot and transfer the onions and celery to your base over a medium heat. Depending on how much liquid you have, you may need to add a whole can of chicken broth or more. If you used enough water while boiling the bones, you can use a bouillon base to impart the flavor without adding more liquid (this helps the soup from growing too much – and I always tend to cook a huge soup!)
After the base has cooked for about 30 minutes, add the carrots and bring the soup back to a simmer. In a small cup or bowl, stir together the heavy cream and cornstarch. Make sure there are NO lumps!! If you have lumps when this is added to the hot liquid, it will turn to a jelly type consistency and is very unpleasant to eat therefore you’d need to scoop the lumps out.
Once the base comes back to a simmer and starts to thicken, add the chicken meat and taste for salt and pepper.
Now comes the pasta. You can handle this one of two ways. Either the pasta can be boiled separately or in the base. If you boil the noodles before adding them to the soup, reduce the boiling time by 2 minutes and allow the pasta to finish cooking in your soup. I like to cook the noodles in the base. In my opinion, this allows the noodles to absorb the flavors instead of being bland. In order to do this without too much added starch, I rinse the noodles under hot water. When you add the noodles to the base, add 1 cup of hot water to 1/2 cup Ditalini noodles and boil for 8 – 10 minutes until pasta is tender. Again, taste for salt and pepper.
This soup turns out to be a good size but I don’t mind, it freezes well!
Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 3 cups roasted chicken meat (approx 3 pound chicken) white and dark
- 1 tsp olive oil for roasting chicken
- 1 tsp garlic powder for roasting chicken
- 1 tsp onion powder for roasting chicken
- 2 dried bay leaves
- 1 tsp dried sage
- 1 tsp celery salt
- ½ Tbsp dried thyme
- 6 cups water to boil bones for base
- 1 14.5 oz Chicken stock/broth
- 1 cup chopped onions
- 1 cup chopped celery
- Splash of white wine or chicken broth as needed
- 1 ½ cups chopped carrots
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 ½ Tbsp Cornstarch
- 1 cup small pasta, uncooked
- Salt & Pepper to taste
Instructions
Roasting the chicken – NOTE: A store bought rotisserie chicken will eliminate this step.
- Preheat oven to 425°
- Place the chicken pieces on a cutting board and season both sides with salt, pepper, onion, and garlic powder. (Reserve the back bone to boil for stock)
- Using a roaster pan with a rack on the bottom, arrange chicken pieces skin side up where they do not touch. Roast for 45 minutes until chicken is cooked through.
- Remove the chicken and set aside to cool for deboning. Remove the rack, it will no longer be needed.
- Set the roaster on the stovetop over medium heat and add chopped onions and celery. Stir to lift pan drippings. Add white wine or chicken broth to prevent sticking.
- Debone chicken meat when cool enough to handle.
Soup Base
- Boil the reserved back bone in 6 cups of water with the dry seasonings. Allow to boil for 45 minutes.
- After the cooked chicken is cooled and deboned, add the remaining bones to the stock and continue to boil for an additional 15 minutes.
- Strain the liquid using a fine woven linen or cheesecloth to separate the bones and seasonings from the soup base.
- Return the base to the stockpot, bring back to simmer, add the sauteed onions and celery and continue to boil for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, add the bite size carrots and bring back to simmer.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and heavy cream until there are no lumps. Then slowly pour mixture into simmering soup base stirring constantly.
- Once the soup begins to thicken, add meat and simmer for 30 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper.
- Rinse small uncooked pasta under hot water until the water runs clear. Add 1/2 cup small rinsed uncooked pasta to the soup with 1 cup hot water and cook 8 – 10 minutes or until pasta is tender.