Keeping Kate: ...Because I Make the BEST Chicken Noodle Soup

You've all seen that Swanson commercial, right? Well, with all the TV watching I'm doing while at home with Vaught, I see it at least a dozen times a day and each time I do, my mouth waters a little and I get the urge to go buy some of that broth and make my own version of chicken noodle soup.

And so today, I did.

Eric has actually been asking me for about three years to find an original recipe for soup to recreate. We made some once a couple years ago; I remember us just throwing a bunch of vegetables into a pot with some broth and olive oil, and it was pretty good! But today I was inspired to create my own chicken noodle soup recipe and use the process of trial and error to get it just right. It may not be perfect, but I promise I wouldn't post this recipe if it weren't really good, as approved just so by my husband--the ultimate food critic!

Just know that even the most basic housewife (aka ME) can make this easily. All you need is a crockpot or stove pot and a little bit of time. Yes, I did use Pinterest to an extent, but I also called my mother three times today with questions about the soups she has made (by the third time she picked up and said, "What now?!"). Geez, mom. Anyway, it's nearly six o'clock now, and I have put together a perfect chicken noodle soup recipe to rival all those of the people on the Swanson commercial.

And with that, I give you the most simplified version of chicken noodle soup there ever was.

Ingredients:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts--buy these in the big package at Kroger and have some leftover for grilling :)

1 pound of mixed vegetables--buy a can of mixed vegetables or a couple that equal one pound. If you prefer to slice and dice your own veggies, that's fine too, but I don't have the patience for all that. Like I said, this is the simplest recipe for soup!

1 small white onion for flavor--I chopped about a fourth of it then threw the leftover stump in for flavoring.

2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil--if you don't cook with EVOO, please start.

Basil leaves--see below

Thyme--This and basil leaves are the types of ingredients I get pissed off at because they seem impossible to find in the produce section; they're not. They are with the organic produce, near the salad section. They come in little packs. Easy!

6 cups of Swanson chicken broth--I used lower sodium kind since my body hangs onto salt like it's going out of style.

1 cup of water

Salt--for taste

Pepper--for taste

2 tablespoons of parsley-- buy the real stuff and chop it yourself or buy it already chopped in a shaker. I had a shaker, so I stuck with that, but you'll find this in the same area as thyme, basil leaves, and all those other awesome herbs.

1/2 tablespoon of minced garlic--you can dice garlic cloves yourselves or buy the stuff in a jar. I had some in a jar (we cook with it all the time), so I just used that

Egg Noodles... unless you're a spazz like me and totally forget the "noodle" part of chicken noodle soup. Luckily I had some spaghetti noodles, so I used that. I didn't use a lot of noodles though; I wanted it to be more soup-y instead of noodle-y.

It seems like a lot of ingredients... It is, but it's not. They're simple and easy to find, and you probably already have at least half of them in your kitchen. As for the price, I spent about $20, but the only things I had to buy were the chicken breasts (and I bought the big, $14 family pack), chicken broth, thyme, and basil. If you had to go out and buy everything above, I'd estimate that it would cost about $30.

Directions: The Fun Part

Pre-heat oven to 375.

In an oven-safe dish, cover just the bottom surface with a little chicken broth. Place the two chicken breasts side by side in the dish and bake for about 40 minutes.

While the chicken baked, I poured 6 cups of Swanson's lower sodium chicken broth into my crockpot, along with 1 cup of water and a pound of mixed vegetables from a can. I diced a fourth a cup of onion, a pinch of thyme, and a few basil leaves and poured those into the pot. I then poured in 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 tablespoon of minced garlic, and a dash of salt and pepper.

This was another way I simplified it; I just used canned veggies that I had instead of cutting up my own. I turned the pot on high heat (four hour setting) at about 12:30pm.

Baking the two chicken breasts took about 40 minutes, and when I pulled them out of the oven I went ahead and shredded the chicken with a knife and fork (I forgot how easy this is to do with baked chicken when it's still really hot)!

I poured the shredded chicken, along with the broth it cooked in and additional broth from the chicken itself into the crockpot. Chicken has a lot of natural broth in it that will add lots of good flavor to your soup.

Make sure to pull those little leaves OFF the thyme; biting into the stem is not fun!

My last step was adding noodles. I just used a bundle of the spaghetti noodles I had (I forgot to buy egg noodles) and broke them into tiny (about an inch-2 inches long) stems and threw them in the crockpot. I didn't want the soup to be overcome by noodles--I like my soup really soup-y.

Everything was in the crockpot and ready to roll by 1:30 and it simmered until Eric was home around 5. What goes hand in hand with a humongous bowl of hot soup? Grilled cheese of course! I made one for me, two for Eric, and we sat down for dinner by 5:15 (Vaught was down for his looooong evening nap by then). Eric is seriously the ultimate food critic, and he should be because he's a fabulous cook, so I asked him if there was anything I should change. He's a major pepper-lover, so his only suggestion for me was to add more pepper next time, but that is why I put salt and pepper "to taste!" I think I ended up using about half a tablespoon of each. Aside from that, he kept saying over and over that the soup was perfect and delicious!

I'm not a big cook, but now that I'm a mother I figured it'd be a great time to become one. I'm happy to have compiled my very own chicken noodle soup recipe that I can throw together in our crockpot any time we need a quick, hot meal!