Homemade Chicken Soup

I've been really into making soups and stews lately, probably because I was sick for a while and it's finally getting colder out. After making my own chicken soup from scratch and realizing how easy it is, I am never going back to anything else. Growing up on Campbell's soup and finally making the same thing but having it taste at least 10x better is always a great feeling.


Homemade Chicken Soup
(slightly adapted from Behind The Skillet)

• 5 cups chicken broth or stock
• 1 cup water
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (I used about 1 1/2 Tbsp dried parsley)
• 2 large cloves garlic, peeled and crushed (or 1 Tbsp pre-diced garlic)
• 1 cup pulled/shredded Chicken breast
• 1 Tbs olive oil 
• 1/2 cup finely diced carrot (about 1 carrot)
• 1/2 cup finely diced leek (about 1 small leek)
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 2 to 2 1/2 cups cooked pasta (I used linguine broken into fourths, but you can use whatever you want)
• salt
• pepper

Place the Broth, water, onion, 2 carrots, celery root, parsley and garlic in soup pot. Season with salt if needed (it really just depends on your broth). Cover and bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and simmer for around 30 or 40 minutes.
Drain through a fine sieve and/or cheesecloth (reserving broth and straining out all the veggies and sediment). Place the pulled chicken in the broth and cover and set aside.

In your soup pot, heat olive oil then add the diced carrot and leek, thyme and pinch or so of black pepper. Saute for around 10 minutes or until the veggies get nice and soft and leeks are just starting to brown/caramelize.

Add half of the broth, cover and gently simmer for around 10 minutes. Add the rest of the stock, pulled chicken and cooked pasta. Taste and season with salt and pepper as necessary, then gently simmer for a few more minutes (don't let it cook too long, or sit for a long time after cooking, as the pasta tends to just soak up all that broth).