The Best Chicken Soup
Everyone thinks their chicken soup recipe is the best, I know. Let's face it - ALL chicken soup is amazing and it's hard to find a bad one when made from scratch. This one is delicious and I have to say I would rather eat my own chicken soup than any other so I'm sticking with the title The Best Chicken Soup.
One thing to note, this is a very thyme forward soup - if you don't love thyme you can sub the stock herb with parsley and omit it from cooking it when softening the vegetables.
INgredients
Stock:
- 2-3 carrots, chunk chopped
- 2-3 celery stalks, chunk chop
- 2 onions quartered
- 1 head of garlic halved
- Whole organic chicken
- 12 cups of cold water (enough to cover chicken)
- A half a bunch fresh thyme put in cheese cloth wrap and dropped in pot
- 2 bay leaves
- About a tablespoon of peppercorns
- About a tablespoon of Better than Bouillon Chicken
Soup:
- 2 carrots, nicely sliced
- 1/2 purple onion, thin slice, then chop
- 1-2 stalks of celery, thin sliced
- 2 twigs thyme leaves
- olive oil
- Acini de Pepe pasta, or small pasta of choice
1.
Salt and pepper inside and outside of chicken. Place chicken and veggies in a deep pot and add water until chicken is covered. Bring to a slow boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 2 hours. Towards the end I’ll taste, add salt or more better than bullion if it needs it.
2.
After stock is done I strain the liquid gold into a new pot. With forks or gloved hands, take the meat off chicken bones. In a clean pot, coat bottom with olive oil and on medium low heat add thinly sliced soup vegetables. Add salt and thyme & cook about 7-10 minutes or until nicely softened.
3.
Meanwhile, cook pasta until al dente.
Meanwhile, cook pasta. Add broth to new vegetable pot, taste and add a little more salt if needed. Add chicken. Spoon some pasta in bowl and top with soup.
I keep my pasta separate from my broth so it doesn't soak it all up. It will give you more leftovers!
