When it comes to comfort food, nothing says nourishing like a nice hot bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup made with love. The base of this recipe is a wonderful, rich homemade chicken stock made with organic chicken and lots of delicious vegetables and seasonings. To create the adorable carrot hearts, check out this fun Heart-Shaped Carrots Tutorial.
For another wonderful chicken soup recipe that’s perfect for cooking with your kids, be sure to try my family-favorite Stone Soup – a deliciously nutritious and fun way to make memories to last a lifetime!
Ingredients
- 6 cups of homemade stovetop chicken stock or homemade slow cooker chicken stock
- 2 cups of shredded cooked chicken (or turkey)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 stalks organic celery, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 1 leek, halved and sliced finely, white and pale green parts only
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/4 tsp dried thyme
- 2 tbsp fresh organic parsley, finely chopped
- Sea salt and pepper to taste
- Optional: 2 cups of uncooked GF noodles, or 4 cups of zucchini noodles, about 3-4 medium zucchini (see photo of Chicken Zoodle Soup below)
Instructions
- In a stockpot over medium heat, add olive oil, celery, carrots and leek. Sauté until veggies start to soften.
- Add stock, bay leaves and thyme. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Allow to simmer about 5 minutes.
- Then add shredded chicken and noodles of your choice, if using. Turn up heat a bit to bring soup to a gentle boil and cook until noodles reach desired consistency.
- Turn off heat and remove bay leaves. Add fresh parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!
A favorite variation on this delicious recipe is to toss in some sliced mushrooms during the veggie sautéing process. Then add about 4 cups of zoodles (zucchini noodles) at the end of the cooking process and allow them to soften to desired texture. Makes the perfect grain-free soup made with love!
Awe sum recipe made this for lunch and its the first chicken soup my wife could eat in 5 years. Big hit for the family!
Thanks a bunch
Ken
So glad you enjoyed it, Ken! Thanks for taking the time to leave a kind note! Blessings, Kelly 🙂
The carrot hearts are so sweet…thanks for sharing this…. I love it!!!
Thanks, Katja! It’s always fun to to bring a little extra touch of love to a recipe! Appreciate you taking the time to leave a kind, encouraging note! Many blessings, Kelly 🙂
Thank you for this wonderful recipe! It looks delicious and I can’t wait to try the gluten-free version. I just posted a minestrone soup yesterday at http://ourholisticjourney.com/2013/02/14/heart-smart-minestrone-soup/ and I added gluten-free elbows to it. Very good, too! 🙂
THanks, Jennifer! I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Your minestrone sounds wonderful! 🙂
What a simple and delicious recipe! I’ve made this several times now, including one time for a sick friend. As a gluten free alternative I used quinoa and that worked really well (I added it already cooked). Thank you so much for the inspiration.
What a great idea, Liz! Sometimes I use cooked rice too for Chicken and Rice soup. I especially love it with wild rice. Appreciate you taking the time to leave a kind note. Blessings, Kelly 🙂
Hi, has anyone tried to freeze this with gluten free noodles? Chiska
Hi, Chiska. I don’t recommend freezing noodles in soups. You could instead remove half of the batch to a freezer safe container. Add the pasta to the remaining soup and enjoy it. Then when you reheat the thawed frozen soup, add uncooked pasta to it and allow it to cook to desired texture. It will be much more enjoyable (less pasty and mushy) this way. (Or save leftover cooked noodles from another meal in the fridge and defrost your frozen soup and add the cooked noodles.) Blessings, Kelly
Just a note: this has become a go-to soup of mine. It is so simple & has amazing flavor. I use zucchini noodles for grain-free soup & it turns out great. And it’s even better heated up during the week for lunch. I could seriously eat this every day. Thank you for sharing it!
You are so welcome, Sommer. Thank you so much for your kind note! I’m so happy you enjoy this recipe! 🙂
This soup was super easy to make and delicious. I added a little butter when I was sautéing the vegetables. I didn’t use noodles. I put small rice cakes in that I use for korean soups. Everyone raved about the flavor. Definitely will make again. So yummy!
Hi, Amy! Butter always make things better, doesn’t it! 🙂 Thanks so much for your kind words. I appreciate you taking the time to leave a sweet note. So glad you enjoyed this recipe and your family too! With blessings, Kelly 🙂