Best Ever Chicken Soup Recipes

Steps:

• Place chicken in a large pot and cover with water. Place celery leaves in pot and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until chicken is cooked through, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove chicken from pot and place in a bowl until cool enough to handle.
• Meanwhile, strain the cooking liquid, discard the celery tops and place the cooking liquid in a large pot. Place celery, carrots, onion, bouillon, soup mix and chicken broth in the pot and let simmer. Season with thyme, poultry seasoning, basil, peppercorns, bay leaves and parsley.
• Bone chicken and cut up meat into bite-size pieces. Return meat to pot. Cook until vegetables are tender and flavors are well blended, up to 90 minutes.
• Stir pasta into pot and cook 10 to 15 minutes more, until noodles are al dente. Serve hot.

Steps:

• Pat chicken dry with paper towels; sprinkle with salt and pepper. In a 6-qt. stockpot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken in batches, skin side down; cook until dark golden brown, 3-4 minutes. Remove chicken from pan; remove and discard skin. Discard drippings, reserving 2 tablespoons., Add onion to drippings; cook and stir over medium-high heat until tender, 4-5 minutes. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Add broth, stirring to loosen browned bits from pan. Bring to a boil. Return chicken to pan. Add celery, carrots, bay leaves and thyme. Reduce heat; simmer, covered, until chicken is tender, 25-30 minutes., Transfer chicken to a plate. Remove soup from heat. Add noodles; let stand, covered, until noodles are tender, 20-22 minutes., Meanwhile, when chicken is cool enough to handle, remove meat from bones; discard bones. Shred meat into bite-sized pieces. Return meat to stockpot. Stir in parsley and lemon juice. If desired, adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper. Discard bay leaves.

Steps:

• Place the chicken, celery, carrots, onions, parsnip (if using), parsley, peppercorns, bay leaves and salt in a large soup pot and cover with cold water by 1 inch.
• Bring to a boil over high heat, then immediately reduce the heat to very low. Adjust the heat until the soup is "smiling": barely moving on the surface, with an occasional bubble breaking through. Cook uncovered, until the chicken is very tender and falling off the bone, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
• When cool enough to handle, use tongs to transfer chicken from the pot to a container. Taste the broth and continue to simmer it until it is concentrated and tasty. Strain broth through a fine sieve (or a colander lined with cheesecloth) into a separate container. Discard all the solids from the strainer (or reserve the vegetables, chill and serve with vinaigrette, if you wish).
• Refrigerate chicken pieces and broth separately for at least 8 hours (or up to 3 days), until a thick layer of yellow fat has risen to the top of the broth.
• When ready to finish the soup, use your fingers to separate chicken breast meat from bones and skin. Discard bones and skin. Use two forks to pull the breast meat apart into soft chunks, or use a knife and cut into bite-size pieces. (Reserve dark meat for another use.)
• Skim chicken fat from top of broth and set aside. Place 3 tablespoons of the fat in a soup pot with a lid. Add leeks, stir to coat, and heat over medium heat until leeks begin to fry. Then reduce the heat to a gentle sizzle and cook, stirring often, until slightly softened, about 3 minutes.
• Add carrots, sprinkle with salt, stir, and cover the pot. Cook until vegetables are just tender, about 5 minutes more. (Keep in mind that vegetables will continue to cook in the soup.) Do not brown.
• Pour broth into pot with vegetables and heat to a simmer. Add noodles and simmer until heated through, soft and plumped with chicken broth. Add the breast meat, then taste broth and add salt and pepper to taste. For best flavor, soup should have some golden droplets of fat on top; if needed, add more chicken fat one teaspoon at a time.
• Serve immediately, in a tureen or from the pot, sprinkling each serving with herbs.

Steps:

• Add 3 of the carrots, 3 stalks of the celery, half the onion, the chicken, peppercorns, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf to a large stock pot. Separate the parsley leaves from the stems and reserve the leaves. Add the stems to the pot. Cover with 3 quarts water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until the broth is golden and the chicken is cooked through, 40 to 50 minutes.
• Use tongs to remove the chicken from the pot and put in a large bowl to cool. Strain the stock through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl or other container. Discard the solids. Wipe out the stockpot and pour the strained broth back into the pot.
• Cut the remaining 2 carrots diagonally into 1/4-slices. Cut the remaining 2 celery stalks into 1/2-inch slices. Dice the remaining half of the onion. Add the cut vegetables to the stock and simmer until tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
• While the vegetables are cooking, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Cook the noodles until al dente, about 5 minutes, then drain and reserve.
• When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and tear the meat into bite-size pieces. Discard the bones and skin. Add the meat back to the pot along with the cooked noodles. Chop the reserved parsley leaves and add to the pot. Season with 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons salt and some pepper and bring to a simmer to reheat.

Steps:

• Heat olive oil in large stock pot.
• Add diced chicken pieces to pot to brown chicken, and cook for 5-10 minutes.
• Add onions, celery, garlic and carrots and saute so everything begins to "sweat".
• Add all seasonings and cook for a few more minutes.
• Add chicken stock to mixture in pot and stir.
• Add spinach leaves to stock and stir.
• Bring this to a boil, uncovered.
• Reduce to simmer and cook for about 15-20 minutes, seasoning broth to taste.
• Add 1 cup of water to pot, bring to boil again.
• Add the bag of noodles directly to pot and cook for another 15 minutes.
• Once noodles are cooked, remove pot from heat.
• When cooled, you can refrigerate or freeze.