Winter Comfort Foods: Chicken Noodle Soup

It's mid-February and we stilll have snow on the ground with snow in the forecast for this week. Although no one in our household is feeling under the weather it feels like a perfect day for a slow cooked meal like the classic winter comfort food; chicken noodle soup.

I unthawed a three to four pound whole chicken over the past few days by placing it in my refrigerator that we previously had bought from Natural Grocers. They just recently opened a store in a nearby town. We feel so lucky to be given additional accessibility to good whole foods.

Often I take a shortcut when making chicken noodle soup and use an already cooked rotisserie, or just use boneless chicken breasts, however we received a great deal at the grocery store for a Mary's Free Range Chicken. I am a little short on time today so I decided to go with a stovetop method rather than using my crockpot.

I am using only the vegetables I have on hand... I roughly chopped four organic orange whole carrots, 3 ribs of organic celery, a garden grown medium sized yellow onion, 4 cloves of garlic from a youth farm in the Willamette Valley, and a handful of organic parsley. I added these to a largish stock pot and lightly covered them with extra virgin olive oil. As I prepared the chicken by washing it and removing the giblet bag I sautéed the vegetables. I placed the whole chicken and giblets on top of the slightly cooked vegetables. I added approx. four quarts of water (just enough to cover the top of the chicken), 1 tablespoon of kosher salt, 1 tablespoon dried Herbs de Provence that I made myself (recipe to follow in a future post), 2 dried bay leaves, 4 dried sage leaves, and a teaspoon of peppercorn. I debated adding rosemary, but for reason last years rosemary tasted bitter. So I decided to omit it.

Covering the stockpot with a lid I allowed the chicken and vegetables to come to a boil over med-high heat and then turned it down to simmer. I simmered the chicken for 1 1/2 hours. The best way to monitor if chicken is fully cooked is by using a meat thermometer. Foodsafety.gov provides a downloadable food temperature chart. Whole chickens need to reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees. According to the Foodsafety.gov website when a "safe minimum internal temperature" is met it "is hot enough to kill harmful germs that cause food poisoning."

After thoroughly cooking I removed the chicken, let it cool enough to not burn my fingers and carefully removed all of the usable meat. And then I discarded the bones. This method can also be used to create chicken broth. If you want to freeze the broth you may strain the liquid completely from the vegetables and meat, and use it for later.

I retained approx ten cups to use in my chicken noodle soup today, and about 2 cups of cooked chicken. I also added a pint of canned carrots, and 8 oz of egg pasta, and cooked for an additional 4-5 minutes. My favorite store bought egg pasta is made by bionature, and can be found in most grocery stores. I also added a bunch of chopped organic curly leaf kale in the last 1-2 minutes.

This soup will look much better than a Campbell's soup commercial.

I like to fill a few serving size freezer bags with soup instead of keeping leftovers in the fridge. Having chicken noodle soup on hand is nice when you are not feeling well and/or can't leave the house.

Make sure to let the soup or broth cool completely before adding to bags. Don't forget to label it either. I have not used one yet, but I have my eye on a YouCopia FreezeUp Freezer Food Block Maker. Until I get one I usually lay the bag flat in my chest freezer allowing it to freeze in a tidy block.

References

Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs (ASPA). (2022, December 16). Cook to a safe minimum internal temperature. FoodSafety.gov. Retrieved February 21, 2023, from https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/safe-minimum-internal-temperatures

Jodi Danen, R. D. N. / C. K. C. (2023, January 30). How to boil a whole chicken. Create Kids Club. Retrieved February 21, 2023, from https://www.createkidsclub.com/how-to-boil-a-whole-chicken/