🇺🇸 United States
Chicken noodle soup
The American chicken soup: a clear chicken broth with pieces of chicken, egg noodles and, usually, carrots, celery and onion.
Origin and history
Chicken soup has been treated as a restorative for a very long time, and Eastern European Jewish immigrants brought their chicken soup to the United States. The noodle version became a household dish and a canned one: Campbell's introduced Noodle with Chicken in 1934, and it became Chicken Noodle after a radio announcer misread an advertisement. The sources read here name no earlier inventor or date for the home dish.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h
- Hands-on
- 30 min
Ingredients
- 900 g2 lb bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts and/or thighs, trimmed of excess fat
- 3/4 tsp salt, plus more to taste
- 1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1.9 l8 cups good chicken broth, homemade if you can
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled, cut in 1 cm (1/2 in) pieces
- 2 stalks celery, sliced thin
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 140 g5 oz wide egg noodles, about 3 cups dry
- 2 tbsp fresh dill or parsley, minced
Method
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1. Season the chicken with the salt and pepper.
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2. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and brown the chicken skin-side down for 4-5 minutes, then turn and cook 4 minutes more.
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3. Add the broth, onion, carrots, celery, thyme and bay leaf. Scrape the browned bits off the bottom, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer gently until the chicken is cooked through, about 15-17 minutes for breasts and 20 minutes for thighs.
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4. Remove the thyme and bay leaf. Lift out the chicken, let it cool a few minutes, then pull the meat off in shreds and discard skin and bones.
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5. Bring the soup back to a boil, add the noodles and cook uncovered until just tender, following the packet time.
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6. Return the chicken to the pot and warm it through for a minute.
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7. Taste for salt and pepper, stir in the dill or parsley and serve hot.
Notes
- Chicken noodle soup is the American comfort-food soup: clear broth with chicken, egg noodles, carrot, celery and onion. It relates to the Eastern European Jewish chicken soup, which Jewish immigrants brought to the United States, most often with matzo balls; the American form is defined by the noodles.
- For a richer broth, simmer a whole 3-4 lb (1.4-1.8 kg) chicken with onion, carrot and celery for about 2 hours, then shred the meat and cook the vegetables and noodles in the strained broth.
- Homemade egg noodles are an option: one home-cook version uses 3 eggs, 3 cups (360 g) flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 2 tbsp water, rested 30 minutes, rolled thin, cut and boiled 1-3 minutes.
- Make-ahead: make the soup up to the noodles and refrigerate it up to 3 days or freeze up to 3 months, with the shredded chicken stored apart; cook the noodles when serving, or separately, because they keep softening in the broth.
- Thighs are more forgiving than breasts, which dry out if overcooked. Macaroni can replace the egg noodles.
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen, Chicken Noodle Soup (as adapted by Once Upon a Chef), Campbell's Company, company history, and Baked by Bree, Chicken Soup with Homemade Noodles.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.