Hearty Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Why This Hearty Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Works

As the pot heats up, the onions, carrots, and celery sit in the olive oil and slowly soften. They give off some moisture, and the oil coats them, so they don’t dry out or burn. After a few minutes, the vegetables lose their hard crunch and start to taste sweeter and milder. When the garlic goes in at the end of this step, it only needs a short time so it softens without turning bitter.

Once the chicken broth is poured in and brought to a boil, it pulls the sweetness from the vegetables and spreads it through the liquid. The shredded chicken warms in that hot broth and stays tender instead of drying out, since it is surrounded by liquid the whole time. While everything simmers, the thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper move through the pot so every spoonful tastes the same.

When the egg noodles go in, they soak up some of the hot broth as they cook. The starch from the noodles leaks into the soup a little, so the broth feels a bit thicker and more comforting instead of watery.

Mistakes To Avoid

Letting the vegetables barely soften before adding the broth leaves them hard in the finished soup. The onions stay a bit sharp, and the carrots and celery stay crunchy instead of tender, so the soup feels more like a broth with raw salad pieces floating in it.

Pouring in the noodles too early makes them swell and fall apart. As they sit in the hot broth for too long, they soak up most of the liquid, turn mushy, and the soup turns into a thick, starchy stew instead of a brothy chicken noodle soup.

Using chicken that is not fully cooked or is cut in big chunks causes uneven bites. Large or undercooked pieces stay tough in the short simmer time, so some spoonfuls have chewy, rubbery chicken instead of soft shreds that mix easily with the noodles and vegetables.

Boiling the soup hard the whole time instead of lowering to a simmer can dry out the chicken and break the noodles. The strong bubbling shakes the noodles apart and squeezes moisture out of the meat, so the chicken turns stringy and the broth gets cloudy and gritty.