Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup
All you need is a leftover rotisserie chicken, some vegetable scraps, spaghetti noodles, and oyster crackers to make the best chicken noodle soup.
When I think of chicken noodle soup, I think about Campbell’s soup and how my mom used to get it scalding hot for me as a kid when I was sick. It felt like it cured all my ailments. I didn’t think anything could beat that delicious warming taste until I got older and started to experience soups with homemade broths. When a restaurant or a home chef takes the time to make their broth, you can taste the love that went into making that flavor and it honestly can cure twice as many ailments. I want to share a great technique to not only use up all those store-made rotisserie chickens that we all love to buy but also to teach the fundamentals of making broth at home. Freeze those chicken carcasses because we will never go back after this one!
We made this as a part of a test to utilize a whole rotisserie chicken.
To see how they stack up, read on here:
Four Recipes and One Rotisserie Chicken. Let’s Make Lunch!
You can see the other three chicken recipes here:
Chicken Pesto Pasta Salad
Chicken Burrito Bowl
Chicken Caesar Salad Lettuce Wrap
Before any cooking, I start by preparing my veg. Why? I love to use all my veg scraps, ugly cuts, string bits, onion skins, garlic husks, and parsley stems in my homemade broth. No waste whatsoever! I truly feel like a witch stirring a cauldron as I admire my beautiful stock with all these cute veg scraps simmering away. Even when you’re not making stock get in the habit of freezing your veg scraps. They make for excellent soup add-ins or for the next time you make stock.
Soup-making is a step-by-step process and usually sets the foundation for a patient and great chef. Brown the bones in fat, brown the veg, add flavor enhancers and aromatics, then cover with water and let simmer. This will be the foundation of our chicken noodle soup. Let your stock simmer for at least forty-five minutes to an hour to let all the flavors infuse into the water. While your stock is simmering, it’s a perfect time to sear your vegetables in another pot on low heat. The longer you cook them, the more flavor you get. If you time your stock just right, your vegetables will be perfectly tender as your chicken stock finishes.
Put the finishing touches on your soup by straining your stock directly into your slow-roasted vegetables, and add in your chicken and broken spaghetti pieces. When the pasta is done, so is your soup! Be sure to maintain your soup at a gentle simmer to prevent moisture loss because as the soup simmers and cooks the pasta, it will reduce and concentrate the salt already in the broth. Finish seasoning your soup when your pasta is cooked. It’s hard to come back from a salty soup.
When my soup is ready to serve I’ve learned to finish with fresh citrus and herbs. We have that lemon peel flavor and parsley stem flavor deeply infused into the stock, those fresh flavors add contrast and layers to your soup that are like the cherry on top of all your hard work. I like to eat my soup with oyster crackers, but I’ve heard other rumors to add Goldfish crackers or even Cheeze-it’s on top of their soup. What’s your special crunchy topper for soup?
Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup
Allergens: Poultry
Diet: Low-Calorie Low-Fat
For chicken broth
- 1 leftover rotisserie chicken, broken up into pieces
- 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 10 cups water
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- 2 cups vegetable scrap (onion roots or skins, celery scraps, carrots scraps, parsley stems, garlic husks, lemon peels, etc)
For soup:
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 carrots, peeled and diced
- 3 celery stalks, diced
- 2 cups dried spaghetti, broken (fideo cut)
- 2 cups reserved chicken meat from rotisserie
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced
- 1 lemon, juiced
- Oyster crackers, for serving
Preparation
- Prepare your rotisserie chicken by picking clean at least 1 ½ - 2 cups of residual chicken meat, then cut the carcass into pieces.(legs, thighs, wings, breasts)
- Preheat a large stock pot over medium-high heat with two tablespoons of olive oil.
- Add cleaned chicken bones to the pan and brown for at least 2 - 3 minutes per side until golden.
- Add all remaining broth ingredients to the pot and bring the mixture to a boil, then immediately reduce to low and cover for 1 hour.
- Remove your chicken bones and drain broth over a mesh strainer into a bowl. Add chicken broth back to the pot and start to reduce the mixture by ⅓ to concentrate the chicken flavor.
- Preheat a second pot over medium-high heat with remaining olive oil and add onion, garlic, pepper flakes, carrots and celery. Season with salt and pepper, then let cook for 6 - 8 minutes or until the veg is softened.
- Add rotisserie chicken, egg noodles, and pour over your chicken broth. Season broth with salt and pepper. It will continue to reduce in the soup, so be mindful of not over salting this step.
- Let the soup simmer until the egg noodles are cooked. Remove from the heat and garnish with fresh lemon and minced parsley.
- Enjoy with oyster crackers!