Chicken Noodle Soup From Scratch, Broth Included

I make chicken noodle soup from scratch when someone in the house is sick, and also when nobody is, because a pot of real broth is the single best thing you can have in the fridge on a Tuesday. The whole thing runs on one chicken, one pot, and about two hours, most of which is simmering while you do something else. Canned broth cannot do what this does, and the difference is almost entirely in the chicken skin and bones.

Prep time: 20 minutes. Cook time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Total time: about 2 hours 5 minutes. Serves: 6 generously, with roughly 2 quarts of broth left over if you want it.

What you will need

Two lists, because the broth and the soup are two separate jobs with the same pot.

For the broth:

• 1 whole chicken, 4 to 5 pounds (giblets removed, neck left in if it came with one)
• 4 quarts cold water, or enough to cover the chicken by 1 inch
• 2 medium yellow onions, quartered, skins on
• 3 carrots, cut into 3-inch pieces
• 3 celery stalks with leaves, cut into 3-inch pieces
• 1 head garlic, halved crosswise
• 8 whole black peppercorns
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
• 2 bay leaves
• A small handful of parsley stems
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more later

For the soup:

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced small
• 3 carrots, sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 3 celery stalks, sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 6 ounces wide egg noodles
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, or 3/4 teaspoon dried
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• Kosher salt and black pepper

Steps

1. Put the chicken breast side up in a large stockpot, at least 8 quarts. Add the onions, carrot chunks, celery chunks, garlic, peppercorns, thyme, bay leaves, parsley stems and the tablespoon of salt. Pour in cold water until the chicken is covered by about an inch. Cold water matters here, it pulls more out of the bones than hot water does.
2. Bring it up over medium-high heat until you see the first lazy bubbles, then drop the heat immediately. You want the surface barely trembling, a bubble every second or two. A hard boil turns the broth cloudy and the chicken stringy, and there is no fixing either.
3. Skim the gray foam off the top during the first 10 minutes with a spoon. After that it stops rising.
4. Simmer uncovered for 45 to 55 minutes, until the thigh meat reaches 175°F on an instant-read thermometer. Lift the chicken out onto a sheet pan with tongs and a big spoon under it so it does not fall apart on you. Let it cool until you can handle it, about 20 minutes.
5. While the chicken cools, keep the broth at a bare simmer another 45 minutes to concentrate it. Then strain everything through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl or second pot and throw out the solids. They have given up everything they had. You should have somewhere around 3 1/2 quarts.
6. Pull the meat off the chicken in bite-size pieces, discarding skin and bones. Set aside about 4 cups for the soup. Whatever is left goes in a container for chicken salad tomorrow.
7. Wipe out the stockpot, melt the butter over medium heat, and cook the diced onion, sliced carrots and sliced celery with a big pinch of salt for 8 to 10 minutes, until the onion is soft and translucent but nothing has browned.
8. Pour in 3 quarts of the strained broth, add the thyme, and bring to a simmer. Taste it now and salt it properly. Unsalted broth tastes like warm water and people blame the recipe.
9. Add the egg noodles and cook at a gentle simmer for 6 to 8 minutes, or a minute less than the package says. Stir in the chicken and heat through, about 2 minutes.
10. Off the heat, stir in the parsley and the lemon juice. Taste one more time for salt and add plenty of black pepper.

The lemon is not optional

Two teaspoons of lemon juice at the end does not make the soup taste like lemon. It makes it taste like chicken. Long-simmered broth goes slightly flat and round, and a small hit of acid right before serving snaps it back into focus. If you skip it, the soup is fine. If you add it, people ask what you did differently.

The noodle problem, and how I handle it

Egg noodles cooked in the pot keep absorbing broth after you turn the heat off. By tomorrow they are fat and soft and the soup is more of a casserole. There is no trick that prevents this, only two ways around it.

If you are eating it all tonight, cook the noodles right in the soup. The starch they release gives the broth a little body and it tastes better than the alternative. That is what I do most of the time.

If you know there will be leftovers, cook the noodles separately in salted water, drain them, and put a scoop in each bowl before ladling the soup over. Store the two apart. It is one more pot to wash and worth it if the soup needs to last three days.

Substitutions

No whole chicken? Use 3 pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. Same method, but check the meat at 35 minutes since thighs cook faster than a whole bird. Boneless breasts will not give you broth worth the name, so if that is all you have, buy good boxed broth and poach the breasts in it for 15 minutes instead.

Egg noodles can be swapped for small pasta like ditalini or orzo, cooked to the package time minus a minute. Rice works too, but cook it separately and spoon it in, because rice in the pot will drink a quart of your broth overnight.

Fresh dill in place of parsley is excellent and makes the soup taste a bit more like a deli. Use the same quarter cup, chopped, stirred in off the heat. Dried dill is not the same thing and I would leave it out.

What to do with the extra broth

You will have around 2 cups to a full quart left depending on how hard it simmered. Chill it uncovered in a shallow container so it cools fast, then refrigerate. If it sets up like soft jelly overnight, you made real broth and you should be pleased with yourself. The fat cap that forms on top is schmaltz, and a spoonful of it in place of butter the next time you start a soup base is better than butter.

Storage and reheating

Cool the soup down quickly before it goes in the fridge. Ladle it into shallow containers rather than leaving the whole pot on the counter, and get it into the refrigerator within two hours of cooking. Big pots of hot soup sit in the danger zone for hours if you let them.

Soup with noodles already in it keeps 3 days refrigerated, though the noodles will be soft by day two. Broth and chicken without noodles keep 4 days, or 4 months frozen. Plain broth freezes for 6 months and I freeze it in 2-cup portions because that is what most recipes want.

Reheat on the stove over medium until it steams and reaches 165°F, usually 6 to 8 minutes for a bowl’s worth. Avoid boiling reheated soup, it shreds the chicken into threads. If the leftovers have thickened past what you want, loosen them with a splash of water or reserved broth and taste for salt again, because thinning it out dulls the seasoning every time.