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I remember growing up and watching my great grandma make homemade noodles for chicken soup, with eggs, flour, and a little salt. It was always a special treat to watch her make the noodles and to get to help as a child. To me, the thick noodles that she made are what chicken noodle soup is all about.
Grandma Branch owned a few restaurants, and the noodles in her chicken noodle soup were the secret to why so many people loved it. Funny enough, she sold her restaurant and when I was in college, I worked for the new owners. They still prepared her soup recipe every day with her secret noodles. This is a great example of how a classic recipe gets passed down generations and adapted from my great grandmother to my grandmother to me.
The real secret to Grandma’s homemade soup that makes me smile when people ask about it is that the noodles are pre-made and frozen! What? Yes, the secret to my grandma’s noodles was that the pre-made noodles from the store tasted just like her mother-in-law’s handmade noodles.
I have had to put together some changes to the way I make it for my family, since we have special diet requirements that we didn’t have before. Although these special noodles are not gluten-free, you could make homemade gluten-free noodles. It really isn’t much more than eggs and flour, with some kneading. I’ll share a link to a recipe for this at the bottom of this post.
Sometimes, cooking meals from scratch doesn’t have to mean that you grow the wheat to make the flour. Sometimes it’s ok to make a healthy, wholesome meal that includes a few store-bought ingredients. There is absolutely no judgement if you use broth from the store, but I choose to make my broth (you can too!) and I don’t know if I would ever go back to commercially canned broth again after making it from scratch. It is literally almost free to make it from the scraps that you would normally throw out. You already paid for the ingredients to make it, so why not take advantage of that? I will do another post on this before Thanksgiving, so you know how to make turkey bone broth, which is my favorite of them all (there’s a great stock pot I’d recommend using here). This broth is so good that you can sip it in a cup all by itself.
As for the secret noodles, check out Reames Homestyle Egg noodles. Yep, that’s them! They are so yummy! Seriously, they make all the difference in chicken noodle soup. You can purchase them at most grocery stores, like Walmart, Winco, Fred Meyer/Kroger, or Target. Check their website for more specific details about where to find these noodles near you. I always have a couple bags in the freezer, since all the other items are also staple pantry and freezer items for me. I can make this anytime and always have the ingredients on hand.
A note for my international friends: I really wish these noodles were available for all of you to experience. Unfortunately, Reames does not ship internationally at this time. There are similar types of dry noodles on Amazon or many recipes online to make your own. I know it may take a little more time to make your own, but one thing you could do is make a huge batch of noodles and freeze them. If you do freeze your homemade noodles, make sure to dry them out first.
OK, Let's Get Cooking!
Great Grandma's Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
Equipment
- 8 or 10 quart dutch oven
Ingredients
- 1 Onion, chopped
- 3 Carrots, chopped
- 3 Celery stalks, chopped
- 3 Garlic cloves, large, whole (optional)
- 1 T. Avocado Oil
- 2 Bay leaves
- 1 T. Thyme
- 1 T. Sage
- 2 T. Italian parsley, fresh or dried
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 3-4 Chicken breasts, fresh or frozen
- 1 16 oz. Package of thick egg noodles, I use Reames
- 2 quarts Broth, your choice, I use homemade turkey but you can also use chicken or veggie
- 2 quarts Water, the amount depends on the size of the dutch oven. 1 qt. water for an 8 qt. and 2 qt. water for a 10 qt. dutch oven
Instructions
- Add chopped onion, celery, carrots, garlic (optional) and your chosen fat or oil to the dutch oven.
- Add salt and pepper to taste and mix.
- Sautee for a few minutes, or until veggies start to get tender.
- Add broth.
- Add chicken breasts and noodles.
- Add thyme, sage, and Italian parsley.
- Let this come to a rolling boil for a couple of minutes*Note: Do not walk away for 3-5 minutes. You need to make sure the noodles don't stick to the bottom.
- Add 1-2 quarts of water, depending on the size of your pot. Let it return to a boil after adding water.
- After it comes to a boil again, lower the heat to let it simmer, uncovered, for the next 90 minutes or so.
- After it's simmered for 90 minutes, pull the chicken out and cut or shred it on a cutting board.
- Pull out bay leaves.
Notes
Nutrition
Now You're Done!
You can serve it as soon as it’s done cooking, or if you are making it earlier in the afternoon, put a lid on it and turn it to the lowest setting. Just don’t forget to keep stirring it occasionally, about every 15 minutes. Those dang noodles like to stick to the bottom.
If you are like me and have one vegetarian in the house, you can pull the chicken out and dish up a container without chicken before putting the cut-up chicken back in the pot. You could also make this entire recipe vegetarian by omitting the chicken and chicken broth and use vegetable stock instead.
When I had little ones in the house, this was a meal I could get done while they napped. It allowed dinner to be ready on time. It’s always a treat to get that task out of the way early in the day. No one likes to answer the dreaded “What’s for dinner?” question at the end of a long day.
I hope you will enjoy this recipe as much as I do and start to see that cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It can seem like a lot at first, but if you just start swapping out ingredients from store-bought to homemade, it can be a little easier to handle.
You will get there!
Having a well-stocked pantry with the essential spices, cooking and baking ingredients is also an important tool to have in your “tool belt” when it comes to cooking from scratch. Check out what I have to say on that here.
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