The Best Chicken Noodle Soup is a dinner made with chicken leg quarters, egg noodles and from-scratch broth, ready in 1 hour 45 minutes. Only 20 minutes of that is active time. The pot serves eight, and the noodles cook separately.
I use chicken leg quarters instead of a whole bird, because dark meat gives more depth in less than an hour. The carrots, celery and onion go in twice: three of each simmer into the broth and get thrown away. Fresh ones go in after straining.
The noodles never touch the broth until the last minute, and that matters more than it sounds. Egg noodles shed starch and keep swelling, so cooking them in the pot clouds the broth and leaves mush by morning. Boil them in salted water, drain, and stir them in at the end.
The Best Chicken Noodle Soup
Course: SoupCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy4
servings30
minutes40
minutes300
kcalParsley gets used in two parts here, stems into the simmering broth and chopped leaves stirred in at the very end. Three quarts of water is the full liquid, and it reduces into roughly eight bowls over the course of an hour.
Ingredients
- For the Broth:
3 of the carrots, peeled and left whole
3 of the celery stalks, trimmed and left whole
1/2 large yellow onion, peeled
3 pounds chicken leg quarters (about 4 legs)
10 whole black peppercorns
2 sprigs rosemary
2 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
Stems from 4 sprigs flat-leaf parsley (reserve the leaves)
3 quarts water
- To Finish:
2 remaining carrots, cut diagonally into 1/4-inch slices
2 remaining celery stalks, cut into 1/2-inch slices
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
4 ounces wide egg noodles (about 4 cups)
Reserved parsley leaves, chopped
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
- Simmer the broth: Add 3 of the carrots, 3 stalks of the celery, half the onion, the chicken, peppercorns, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf to a large stock pot. Separate the parsley leaves from the stems, reserve the leaves and add the stems to the pot. Cover with 3 quarts water, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the broth is golden and the chicken is cooked through, 40 to 50 minutes.
- Strain and reset: Use tongs to remove the chicken from the pot and put it in a large bowl to cool. Strain the stock through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl and discard the solids. Wipe out the stockpot and pour the strained broth back in.
- Add the fresh vegetables: Cut the remaining 2 carrots diagonally into 1/4-inch slices, cut the remaining 2 celery stalks into 1/2-inch slices and dice the remaining half onion. Add the cut vegetables to the stock and simmer until tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
- Cook the noodles separately: While the vegetables are cooking, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Cook the noodles until al dente, about 5 minutes, then drain and reserve.
- Pull the chicken and finish: When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and tear the meat into bite-size pieces, discarding the bones and skin. Add the meat back to the pot along with the cooked noodles and the chopped parsley leaves. Season with 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons salt and some pepper, then bring to a simmer to reheat.
The ingredient list counts 5 carrots and 5 celery stalks in total, split three for the broth and two for finishing. No nutrition panel is published, so the calorie figure is estimated from the ingredients at eight servings.
Two numbers in this recipe deserve a second look before you cook it.
FAQs
The recipe calls for a tablespoon plus two teaspoons of salt. Is that a typo?
Five teaspoons of kosher salt across three quarts of broth works out near 1,400 mg sodium per bowl. It is not a typo, since nothing else in the pot is salted and homemade broth starts at zero. Add half, taste, then add the rest only if it needs it.
Do I really throw away the first batch of vegetables?
Yes, because forty-five minutes of simmering leaves them grey and completely spent of flavor. Everything they had went into the broth, which is the whole point of the first round. The remaining two carrots and two celery stalks go in fresh and stay firm.
Can I use chicken breast instead?
Picture the broth after an hour with breast meat in it: thin, pale and stringy, because there is no fat or collagen. Bone-in thighs are the closest swap if leg quarters are hard to find. Keep the bones in whatever cut you choose, since that is where the body comes from.
How do I get a clear broth instead of a cloudy one?
Holding the pot at a bare simmer, never a rolling boil, keeps the fat from emulsifying into the liquid. Skim the grey foam off during the first ten minutes, when most of it rises. Straining through a fine mesh sieve catches whatever survives that.
How do I store it without ruining the noodles?
Store the broth and the noodles in separate containers, and combine them only in the bowl. Noodles left sitting in broth will drink it overnight and turn to paste, which no amount of reheating fixes. For a weeknight shortcut that skips the broth entirely, this rotisserie chicken noodle soup takes twenty-five minutes.
Four ounces of noodles for eight servings seems low.
Four ounces dry is roughly two cups, which swells to about four once cooked, so half a cup per bowl. That ratio keeps it a soup rather than a casserole, and it is deliberate. Double it if your house votes for noodles, or try a meatball and pasta soup built denser from the start.
