The Real Deal Chicken Soup

Yesterday was one of those perfect fall days and I was craving a bowl of hot chicken soup. We also all have colds so I wanted to do what I could to make everyone feel a little better. Of course, little Brian wouldn't eat it so he had oatmeal instead (enter mad face, are there emoticons on blogger? I must find out).

I can't remember making a chicken soup this good but then again I have pregnancy/sleep deprived/baby amnesia so it is possible. > Seriously though, what is with the amnesia?? Do other moms feel this way? I can't remember sh** these days. I feel like I need to give a disclaimer to every person I talk to like, "sorry if we've already spoken about this but..." Is that a thing?? Or is it only me? I hope not <

Anywho, I feel like whenever I am sick I rely on asking my mom to make her delicious chicken soup, but I wanted to give it a go this time now that I'm an adult with two kids of my own to look after, which still baffles me sometimes. I looked online for recipes and came up short with all these short-cut ones but I wanted to make the real deal. So I called up mom and went to the local market to pick up these ingredients:

1 whole chicken
1 quart of low sodium chicken broth
carrots (not baby carrots)
onion
celery
*I already had dried spices at home to use which included parsley, bay leaves and thyme

So here is what you have to do, it's SO EASY!!!

Take the chicken out of the bag and rinse it under cold water (gross). I used perdue and the nasty inside stuff is in a bag in the cavity that you take out and throw in the garbage (super gross). Place the chicken breast down in a pot (I used my Le Creuset dutch oven). Cover the chicken with cold water and put in your chopped onion, carrot, and celery. Add your spices, some salt (about 2.5-3 tablespoons, you can always add more after) and peppercorns and let it all come to a boil. Once the water is at a rolling boil, reduce to a simmer and place the lid half on so the steam can come out. Let the chicken cook about 45 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.

Take the chicken out and shred it all up like this:

I can't believe I posted that, so gory looking!

And strain your broth taking out all the veggies. I added back the carrots but that's it, I guess you could add back the onion and celery if you wanted to but a lot of their flavor leaves and goes into the broth.

So you add the chicken back into your pot with the broth and let simmer. I added more broth using about a half quart of the low sodium chick broth and some more cooked carrots. 

Also, cook the noodles of your choice separately and add them as you are serving the soup into the bowls so they don't get too mushy. 

And there you have it, a perfect soup to impress the best! Add that to your list of staples :)