Mom's Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

I am a bit slow at posting this, but as promised I wanted to show you what I did with what was leftover from the Whole Chicken that I roasted last week. I was pretty tired on Sunday night and I didn't want to deal with the rest of the chicken that night so I stuck the leftover meat in a bowl in the fridge and then I just took my chicken carcass and drippings and covered it with saran wrap and tossed it in the fridge for the night. This actually works well because in the morning it is very easy to skim off any unwanted fat. Mine didn't have a lot because I had removed most of the skin from the chicken before roasting it.

I dumped the whole carcass and drippings into a big stock pot along with everything else I had roasted my chicken with and then added enough water to cover my chicken well. You can add more carrots, celery, and onion if you like at this point and you may want to if you are going to freeze or can the stock, but I didn't because I planned to use it right away for soup.

Bring your stock to a boil and allow it to simmer for several hours. When it is done simmer strain out the chicken and other bits, leaving only the stock. I love using my stock pot that has the colander that fits inside of it for this because when it is done simmering I can simply lift it out of the stock.

When you are done simmering you should have something that looks like this. You know you have good stock when it has a rich yellow color to it. It should also smell and taste very chickeny.
Save your chicken carcass to the side and let it cool while you work on cutting up veggies for your soup.

My Mom's chicken soup always had carrots, celery, and potatoes in it. I loved it! It was my favorite meal that she made. One thing that I add to my soup is sweet potatoes. They really make it yummy! I don't really know amounts to tell you. I just chop and dump stuff in. But I had a large stock pot and pictured to the right is what I put into my soup.

About 5 large carrots, 4 stalks of celery, 5 medium sized red potatoes, and 2 medium sized sweet potatoes. Peel them, chop them, and drop them into your broth. Bring it all to a boil and then let it simmer until your veggies are tender.

While your veggies are cooking tackle your chicken. Take your cooled chicken carcass and remove any remaining chicken.

Mine didn't have much left, because I had removed most of it the night before. On the plate is what I removed from the carcass and in the bowl is what I had removed the night before.

Overall I ended up with quite a bit of chicken left over though. I dropped all of it into my yummy soup. But you could also make a smaller pot of soup and only use half of the chicken and use the other half in a casserole or enchiladas and then you get three meals out of one chicken. At this point it is really easy to stick the chicken in a freezer container to be used for later if you want.

Take your homemade noodles that you made earlier - find out how here- and drop them into your boiling soup. 

Let your noodles cook for about 20 to 25 minutes. You can see how they all float up to the top as they get cooked. At this point your soup is done and ready to enjoy!

Mom's Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Here it is hot and delicious! It really is my favorite winter time meal.

 Now just a few things I wanted to mention in case you want to make this delicious soup without using a whole chicken. Any type of chicken on the bone will work. But remember that it is the bone that makes the broth rich and delicious and imparts that wonderful chicken flavor. So boneless skinless breasts will not cut it. But you can use thighs, wings, drummies, breasts, or a combination. A whole cut up chicken works great. You don't need to roast the chicken ahead of time either you can just dump it into your stock pot and allow the chicken to cook in your stock water, and remove the meat from the bones later. I will often do it this way and then divide the cooked meat up into several freezer containers for future meals.

Even if you are not going to make soup this is a great way to cook your chicken for other meals, because you can make a stock by adding carrots, celery, and onion to the water you cook your chicken in and then you can can or freeze the stock to be used later. I use tons of chicken stock and it is very expensive to buy in the can and is loaded with salt and preservatives. Much healthy and yummier to make your own!

I promise to do future post on canning and freezing stock. I use several methods depending on what I want to use it for.

That is all for now, I hope you enjoy making and eating my favorite meal of all time! Thanks mom, for teaching me how and always making this for my birthday when I was a kid!

Using a Whole Chicken

Whole Chicken ready for Roasting

When I got married over 8 years ago, bone-in chicken was foreign to me. I don't remember my mom ever using it very much. We usually had boneless skinless chicken.  At least that is what I remember having as I got older and started learning to cook. Now in my home you rarely see boneless skinless chicken it is bone-in all the way baby. Over the years I have become more accustomed to cooking and utilizing a whole chicken. I try very hard to get the most out of one little bird.  One chicken usually provides two to three meals for my family of five and costs me between $3 and $4. It is much more cost effective than using boneless skinless chicken and I think it is actually a lot tastier too!

One way that I prepare a whole chicken is just to roast it up in the oven. I clean the bird out well and then stuff it with some yummy aromatics that usually include celery stalks, carrots, a quartered onion, 2 to 3 cloves of garlic, and some fresh herbs from the garden ( parsley, basil, cilantro, etc.) I usually remove most of the skin from my chicken too, this just makes it a bit healthier, and I have never had a problem with dry chicken. I rub down the top with olive oil and then add some seasoning, whatever you like. I am a fan of sage, season salt, black pepper and thyme. But I change it up depending on my mood. Cover the whole thing with foil and pop it in a 350 degree oven for a couple of hours, depending on the size of the bird. Just check it with a meat thermometer, but don't cook it too long or it will get dry. It comes out delicious and yummy. We usually eat this chicken along with some roasted or mashed potatoes and some steamed carrots or cabbage. But we never eat the whole chicken so then I use the leftovers for another meal or sometimes two depending on what I make. In addition, the chicken carcass along with the juices and aromatics are further cooked down into stock to be canned, frozen, or made into soup. One of my favorite second dishes to make with this chicken is my mom's Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup. In the next couple of days, I will share my recipe for this tasty soup along with some other ideas for utilizing your leftover chicken. If you haven't ever tried using a whole chicken give it a try.