An easy creamy chicken noodle soup recipe made on the stovetop using simple ingredients in about 90 minutes. This homemade soup uses a whole rotisserie chicken, egg noodles, and fresh veggies + herbs, all of which add a ton of extra flavor. It's thick, hearty & cozy and really hits the spot when you have a comfort food craving or need a hot meal to warm your belly in cold weather. (Gluten-Free Option)
I've been obsessed with creamy soups lately. It all started a few weeks ago when the temperatures dipped into the 40s, which put me into full on hibernate-and-eat-all-the-warm-things mode.
The sky was gray aaaaaaaall day long and despite having cranked up the heat, I just couldn't keep warm. My body started craving comfort food, so I knew soup was in order.
After browsing Pinterest for a while, I settled on a homemade Zuppa Toscana (potato & sausage) soup. I then asked my real-life friends on Facebook if they had any favorite ways to fix it, got some really helpful responses, and ran to the store to grab the rest of the ingredients.
I made it later that night and it turned out ahhhh-mazing. Creamy, savory, and totally comforting. We ate the leftovers for dinner the next night, and then two days later I fixed it AGAIN!
Once we polished off the second batch, I started dreaming about a creamy chicken soup recipe. I wanted it to be thick & hearty (so my beau wouldn't accuse it of being a "soggy stew" as he so fondly likes to call brothy soups) and have lots of flavor.
That last part is super important!
Why? Growing up, traditional chicken noodle soup was my least favorite soup. Probably because my family almost always served it to me out of that little red can when I was sick. And the few times I actually ate the real kind with thick, chunky noodles (ordered from a deli or restaurant), I always found it bland and boring.
Can you relate?
Thankfully I'm an adult now so I can experiment in the kitchen until I find a chicken soup recipe that lights up my taste buds and sings to my soul. Which is exactly how this creamy chicken noodle soup was created.
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The Inspiration/Creative Process for This Creamy Soup
Pot Pie Flavors
At first, I thought about doing a chicken pot pie soup by riffing off my cast-iron chicken pot pie recipe but didn't want to use potatoes since I'd already had my fill in the sausage soup. SO, I settled on doing a creamy chicken noodle soup with similar pot pie flavors (heavy cream, carrots, celery, butter & thyme) sans the taters.
But I was still left with the problem of how to make the base of the chicken soup taste amazing without using bouillon. I didn't want to start the stock from scratch with fresh chicken, which is how most homemade chicken soups are made.
This process takes 3+ hours and still doesn't ensure the tastiest of soups, in my opinion. Plus, I like to cook my homemade stocks for 8+ hours, if possible, for maximum flavor + nutrition.
The Secret Sauce To an Extra Flavorful Chicken Soup
That's when I serendipitously stumbled on this chicken soup while surfing Pinterest on my phone. It calls for adding a whole rotisserie chicken to chicken stock. What a frigging brilliant technique!
This creates double the chicken flavor because the bones + cooked meat + seasonings on the outside of the chicken already have a TON of flavor, which then gets absorbed by the broth while it simmers. I ended up using a whole smoked chicken instead, but a regular rotisserie chicken works perfectly fine.
Integral Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup Seasonings To Make It Pop
Next, I consulted some other creamy chicken noodle soup recipes to make sure I wasn't leaving out any integral seasonings (by using my typical chicken pot pie flavors) and was inspired by this chicken noodle soup recipe (which has a bazillion positive ratings) to add fresh parsley and lemon juice to the soup + grated Parmesan cheese for serving. It actually calls for sherry, but I figured I could substitute lemon juice instead. :)
I also added turmeric powder to the finished soup for a pop of color, along with a hefty bit of cracked black pepper, which makes all the goodness in turmeric easier to absorb by your body. If you don't have any on hand, just skip it. But I totally recommend you try it!
I also added turmeric powder to the finished soup for a pop of color, along with a hefty bit of cracked black pepper, which makes all the goodness in turmeric easier to absorb by your body. If you don't have any on hand, just skip it. But I totally recommend you try it!
Using The Easiest & Best Noodles
By now, all I had to do was figure out the noodles part. However, since I have zip-a-dee-doo-dah experience with making homemade noodles, I had to find the best ready-made noodles available. Regular ol' dried noodles just weren't going to cut it.
Enter frozen egg noodles. These little gems are made with only three simple ingredients--flour, water, and eggs. That's it!
They start out as humble strips of dough but after about 20 minutes in boiling water (or simmering soup), they turn into thick & hearty noodles that will fool almost any eater into thinking you made them from scratch as a special treat. ;) These are the best noodles to use if you want to kick your soup up a notch without doing any extra work!
This Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup is Homemade Goodness
This isn't the quickest recipe around. There are times for throwing together a quick 15-30 minute meal and there are times for lovingly preparing a meal that will take you to your happy place. This qualifies as the latter.
But it's EASY and oh so worth your time. Trust me, it'll pay off come mealtime when your loved ones are smitten with you for creating the "best chicken noodle soup ever"!
I was initially apprehensive about serving it to my soup-hating beau, but he happily ate a bowl, called it "pasta soup", and went back for seconds. Win win win.
If you can't tell already, this soup is the epitome of comfort food.
It starts with a savory broth enhanced with the flavors of a whole rotisserie chicken, onion, celery, carrot, and dried thyme, which is then further amazified (I just made up that word) by pouring in delicious heavy cream thickened with a roux of flour + butter.
Next, you stir in tender shredded chicken, thick & hearty noodles (cooked separately), ground turmeric, black pepper, chopped fresh parsley & thyme, and juice from a lemon (to help brighten all the flavors).
After a few minutes, you ladle it into a bowl, top it with parmesan cheese, spoon it into your mouth, make some "mmmmmm" noises, and then go to your blissful place.
That pretty much sums it up.
Unless you want to make your meal EVEN MORE AWESOME.
Recipe For The Coziest Night In Ever
While the soup is warm on the stovetop...
- fix a cozy beverage (hot cocoa, pumpkin spice latte, hot tea, or wine comes to mind)
- while you're at it, bake a quick batch of cheddar garlic drop biscuits to dunk in the soup (you can thank me later)
- change into sweats or pajama pants + a big ol' hoodie & snowflake slippers (ahem)
- grab a big bowl for yourself
- curl up in a comfy chair with a good book (May I recommend Outlander or Fourth Wing?)
- also bring along a homemade flourless peanut butter cookie or two for dessert
Watch The Recipe Video
Before you jump into the instructions, make sure to watch my short recipe video by clicking below. It illustrates the whole process of making homemade creamy chicken noodle soup!
creamy chicken noodle soup, creamy chicken noodle soup recipe
soup
American
Yield: 6 servings
Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
prep time: 30 minscook time: 1 hourtotal time: 1 hours and 30 mins
An easy creamy chicken noodle soup recipe made on the stovetop using simple ingredients in about 90 minutes. This homemade soup uses a whole rotisserie chicken, egg noodles, and fresh veggies + herbs, all of which add a ton of extra flavor. It's thick, hearty & cozy and really hits the spot when you have a comfort food craving or need a hot meal to warm your belly in cold weather. (Gluten-Free Option)
ingredients:
- 2-3 teaspoons of cooking oil
- 2 cups of onion, diced (about 1 large)
- 2 cups of carrots, thinly sliced (4 medium carrots)
- 2 cups of celery, diced (5-6 stalks)
- 1 whole chicken, pre-cooked (rotisserie or smoked)
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme
- 6 cups of chicken broth (homemade broth or store-bought)
- 1 (12 oz) package of frozen egg noodles, dried egg noodles, OR gluten-free egg noodles, cooked separately
- 1/4 cup of flour (omit for gluten-free version - see notes)
- 4 tablespoons of butter
- 1 cup of heavy whipping cream
- 1 lemon, juiced
- ½-1 teaspoon of turmeric root powder
- 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley, chopped
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of fresh thyme, chopped
- Sea salt, to taste
- Black pepper, to taste
- Parmesan cheese, to taste (optional)
instructions:
- Place a stockpot over medium heat, then add the cooking oil, onion, carrot & celery. Season with salt + pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. To save time, you can skip this step, but "sweating" the veggies helps to draw out more flavor.
- Meanwhile, heat up a separate pot of water (or stock) for the noodles. Remove the breast meat from the chicken and place in the fridge (we're adding it back in at the end). Add the garlic, dried thyme, and bay leaf to the veggies. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally, then take the whole chicken and set it in the pot. Pour in the chicken stock, bring to a simmer, reduce heat and cook for 30 minutes (covered or uncovered).
- Around the time that you stick the chicken in the pot (or whenever the water starts boiling), go ahead and cook the noodles according to the packaged instructions, then drain and set aside.
- Chop the parsley and thyme and juice the lemon, then set those aside. After the chicken's been in there for 30 minutes or so, carefully remove the whole chicken with tongs. Using a slotted spoon or another utensil, thoroughly check the broth for any bones, cartilage, or skin that might have fallen off, and remove any you find. Set the chicken aside to cool for a few minutes before taking off all the meat and shredding it into bite-sized pieces.
- In a skillet over medium heat, add the butter. Once melted, slowly add the flour a little at a time, whisking/stirring constantly to incorporate it into the fat. Once that's all in, keep whisking and let it cook for 2 minutes, then slowly pour in the heavy cream a little at a time, while again whisking constantly, until everything is smooth.
- Using a ladle, slowly stir in about 1-1/2 cups of broth from the soup, until the roux is quite thin. This will help to prevent it from clumping when we add it to the soup. Pour the mixture from the skillet into the stockpot and stir well until fully incorporated (there shouldn't be any lumps).
- Add the shredded chicken and cooked noodles, followed by the lemon juice, turmeric powder, parsley, thyme, and black pepper. Stir well and taste the soup. Add more salt, pepper, thyme, or parsley to suit your taste. The soup will thicken as it sits, so serve immediately to keep it a bit thinner or wait 15-20 minutes for a thicker soup. Top with Parmesan cheese and extra fresh parsley, thyme & black pepper, and serve with toasted buttered bread or homemade buttermilk drop biscuits, if desired.
NOTES:
If you prefer a brothier soup that isn’t as thick, omit the flour + butter step (to make the roux) and just pour the heavy cream directly into the soup. To make this recipe gluten-free, use gluten-free dried egg noodles (like the ones I linked to above) and SKIP the flour + butter (it'll just be brothier initially but will thicken up as the noodles soak up the liquid). You can substitute half & half or whole milk instead of heavy whipping cream if that's all you have on hand; however, it won't taste as rich. It tastes best with heavy whipping cream. :) If you have leftover bone-in cooked chicken at home, you can totally use that instead of going out and getting a whole rotisserie chicken. The key is that it's cooked and already well-seasoned so that flavor transfers to the stock. The soup will thicken up considerably by the next day as the noodles absorb the liquid so you may need to add a bit of extra stock when reheating the leftovers (we didn't need any).
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