This one is good for everyone, but especially for the parents out there. Chicken soup is a good thing to make if you have a kid for a couple of reasons. First, apparently it’s medicine or something because you are supposed to eat it when you are sick. And if you have a kid, you are sick all the time. Before we had a kid, I never got sick and Elizabeth got sick even more never than me. Now, in the past couple years, I’ve had that cruise ship thing twice (sucks) and swine flu once (all hype) and a bunch of other minor illnesses.
Second, it’s pretty easy to make and doesn’t take much time. And kids take up a lot of time that you could otherwise devote to making your own phyllo dough or fish sauce or whatever it is people without kids do when. I called this easy weeknight chicken soup, but really I just did that because it would make it come up higher in search results because I think people google easy things a lot. I probably should have called it “Scarlett Johansson hot nude pixxx chicken soup” and really goosed the search engine optimization.
But really, there’s not much to chicken soup. Chicken (naturally), your aromatics, broth, some herbs, and you’re most of the way there. I also think it’s really important to have something acidic in there. This recipe has apple cider vinegar, because that’s what we have, but I also really like to use rice wine vinegar (which I only remember we are out of when I go to make something with it). This one also has a splash of madeira, but that is totally optional.
- 1 pound or so boneless chicken parts chopped into small pieces
- 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
- 2 stalks celery chopped
- 2 carrots peeled and diced
- 1 medium yellow or white onion diced
- 1 red pepper cored, seeded and diced
- 1 quart chicken broth store bought or homemade
- a pint or so chopped mushrooms shiitake
- several sprigs fresh thyme
- 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar maybe more
- splash madeira optional
- two big handfuls egg noodles
- sea salt and pepper to taste
- minced parsley leaves for garnish
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Put a stock pot over medium heat. Once it heats up, add butter or oil and then the onion, carrot, red pepper, and celery. Cook, stirring often, until everything is tender.
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Pour in stock and turn heat to high. Add thyme sprigs, chicken, vinegar, madeira, and sea salt and pepper to taste.
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Once broth boils, turn heat down to low and simmer for about 30 minutes.
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Taste and adjust with vinegar, sea salt, pepper. (Blow on it first! Don’t burn your tongue.)
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When you are about 10-12 minutes from being done, add the noodles.
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Put in a bowl. Top with parsley.
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That’s it!
Would love to get updates on recipes.