Chicken Noodle Soup

We are having a magnificent rain, thunder and lightning display here today! And, at my house, it seems we have front row tickets. What a treat!

So, what do we do on a rainy day? We cook Chicken Noodle Soup. Here's my recipe. I keep it simple to avoid exposure to too many ingredients. The key to the delicious taste is using a quality chicken, preferably organic.


Chicken Noodle Soup

1 whole chicken
8 C water, or enough to cover the chicken
3 T salt, additional salt at the end to taste
1 onion, quartered
2 peeled cloves garlic, optional
1 bag rice noodles

1. Wash chicken. Place the chicken in a large stock pot and cover with cool water. Add onion and garlic and cover with lid.
2. Bring to boil and simmer slowly for 1.5 - 2 hours. The longer is simmers, the softer the chicken and the tastier the soup.
3. Remove chicken, onion and garlic. Salt broth to taste.
4. To make the full soup recipe to serve 10, place noodles in broth and bring to boil, cooking until done. If left in the broth, these noodles will get mushy so only cook what you will eat at this meal. If you are making a small amount of soup, transfer some broth to another pot then cook noodles in the smaller pot.
5. Debone chicken and place in soup with noodles. Or, in our family, we like to serve the whole deboned chicken at the table for everyone to eat. Serve with salt so each person may adjust to their own taste.

Beware....some chickens use broth as fillers for their chicken. You must look carefully on the labels to find the notes about this. These broths often contain soy, corn, and other unidentified vegetables. It is worth your money and time to find a chicken brand that does NOT add any of these "natural" ingredients.