Welcoming Fall with some Chicken Noodle Soup

Nothing says 'FALL' like a good soup and there is just something about eating a hearty chicken noodle soup on a cold day that I just love. When I began freezing meals and using them in rotation with my weekly dinners I began to search for a good chicken noodle soup recipe. I wanted a recipe that would be easily assembled, taste great, was thick, and could be frozen. After much searching I came across this recipe from Freezer Friendz two years ago and it has become my go to chicken noodle soup recipe. I do tweak it a bit for my own liking. If you want the original recipe click on the link above. Here we go:

Ingredients:

2 C of shredded or diced chicken 

1 can of cream of chicken soup

2 cups of chicken stock

2 cups of veggies (I eye ball it and I use celery, carrots, and onions.)

2 cups of cooked noodles

2 bay leafs

Pat of butter

Generous sprinkling of poultry seasoning

Salt and Pepper to taste

It should be noted that I pretty much eye ball this whole recipe...I'm very much a Rachel Ray type cook don't get precise unless I'm baking. This recipe doubles and triples beautifully. On this particular day I doubled my recipe. 

Start by boiling water for the noodles and chopping your veggies. I used my food processor to slice my carrots and celery and then chop my onion. Heat a deep pot with a pat of butter or two depending on the volume of veggies you need to soften at medium high heat. Add the veggies and let them begin to cook. After a few minutes add the bay leaf and the poultry seasoning. 

When your water is boiling add your pasta and again gauge it on how much soup you are producing. I will say that if you want to freeze some I would only cook noodles for what you plan to consume then. It's easier to freeze the soup base and then when you pull it out of the freezer cook noodles that particular night. So, I cooked enough for what we were going eat and didn't worry about what I was planning to freeze.

Next, add your cream of chicken soup and your chicken stock. Depending on your preferences you can add more of less stock depending on how thick/creamy you like your soup. I make my own chicken stock these days because it's cheaper but you can use store bought stock easily. At this point you can add your chicken...you can cook raw chicken in your base. I do this all the time in my chicken-n-dumplings recipe and have never had a problem. If you do this bring your soup mixture to a boil and add your chicken and then knock the heat back down. If you have precooked chicken then just lower the heat to a simmer and add your chicken. This particular time I had precooked chicken on hand from earlier in the week. Once it was warmed I did salt and pepper to taste. At this point I went ahead and pulled out what I was planning to freeze. What was left then received a generous helping of noodles. And then it was time to eat. Super easy and really tasty. We ate our soup with grilled cheese sandwiches this particular night. I've been eating the leftovers over the course of this last week. Enjoy!

Veggies sweating it out.

 Noodles cooling  off and waiting to go in the pot.

 Cream of chicken added along with the stock.

 Chicken chopped and ready to go.

 Everybody in the pot.

 Mmmmmm! So, so, so good!

 Ready for the freezer.

Freezing tips:

-I love to freeze in these Ziploc containers because they are made for the freezer, heavy duty, and washable. 

-Label everything! I like the Ziploc containers because I can write on the lid with a dry erase marker and then wipe/rub it off when I get ready to wash the container. They also have a spot for the date which comes in handy.

-For this particular recipe you could thaw it in the croc pot and then add your cooked noodles before serving. You can also add some more stock or a little milk to thin it out a bit...to help stretch it even further. 

Variations:
-Last Thanksgiving I used left over turkey and used it instead of the chicken and it was really good. I plan to do that again this year since we'll be hosting Thanksgiving for the college family and Christmas for Andy's family this year. I'm sure at some point we'll have some extra turkey that needs to be used up and this is a great way to change it up.