Classic Chicken Noodle Soup
By: Paula Lehman
Published: Monday, April 26, 2010 - 12:38pm

Ingredients




1 whole chicken
4 mediums carrots
5 stalks celery, preferably with leaves
1 medium large or 2  onions
1 bay leaf
poultry seasoning or sage

salt

pepper

Preparation

1 Rinse a whole, thawed chicken thoroughly in cool water. 2 You can remove some of the fat from the chicken before cooking, but I recommend leaving some for flavor. 3 Place in a very large pot. I use a 6 quart pasta pot. This makes a lot of soup. 4 Dice the celery, but cut the carrots and onion chunky so you can remove them easily. I like to leave the peel on the onion for color. 5 Add all of the celery, 2 of the carrots and the onions. 6 Also add your bay leaf, salt, pepper, and about a tablespoon of poultry seasoning (or sage) to taste. 7 Add enough water to just barely cover the chicken and place on burner. Bring to boil, then drop to a simmer. 8 Allow to simmer, covered, for about two hours. At this time the chicken will be fully cooked and probably falling apart. Your stock will be much darker than your average chicken stock. 9 Take out the chicken and vegetable chunks. Allow the chicken to cool. 10 Return stock to burner and add your remaining carrots cut into circles. Taste the stock to check seasoning. 11 Allow carrots to cook for a few minutes and bring stock to boil. Then, add pasta, remove from heat and put the lid on the pan. Leave on for about ten minutes to cook the pasta without making it soggy. 12 If you like, you can skim off some of the fat once it cools to make it lower in fat.

About


This is a variation of my mom's classic soup. Soup is her best dish and this was featured in many of my father's work lunches and my school lunches. Reheats wonderfully, freezes beautifully and is great for a cold. Easy to vary with rice or homemade dumplings. You can add other vegetables if you need to use something up.