Sunday, February 21, 2010

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

My Mom's Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup:

1 chicken thigh quarter (skin on, bone in)
8 oz (1/2 bag) egg noodles
1 can cream of chicken soup
8 to 10 cups water (estimated)

Fill up a large stock pot (8 quart) with water, and add a chicken quarter. Boil the chicken for a couple of hours, and then remove it from the pot. Add noodles and extra water to bring the pot to about 2/3 full (if needed). As the noodles are boiling skin the chicken, and then pull it off of the bone and into bite sized pieces. As the noodles finish add the chicken back in the pot and reheat through. Add the can of cream of chicken soup, and any water needed to make it as soupy as you like it. Keep in mind I do most of this by eyeballing it (water-wise) so you'll just have to play around with the water.

I got approximately nine 1-1/2 cup servings, at about 3 pts per cup. If you get 8 servings it's more like 4 pts/serving. A cup and a half serving is very ample.

Cost analysis:

Chicken - $3.00 per 10 lb bag at $0.27 per quarter. It was on mgr's special
Egg Noodles - $1.00 per 12 oz bag, I used 8 oz so approximately $0.64
Cream of Chicken soup - $0.49 per can
Water - negligible

Total pot of soup: $1.40
Per serving: $0.16

Admittedly this isn't a very exciting bowl of soup, but oh so yum when it's cold, rainy, and you're needing some comfort. Sometimes I like my chicken noodle soup more clear, and with onions, celery and carrots, but then sometimes I like the simplicity of this one. This is one of those that you just... do. It doesn't take measuring or anything, you just throw stuff in the pot and cook. Try it!

2 comments:

Robin French said...

Mmmm, sounds good.

Laura Carson said...

It really is - to be so simple, cheap, and have so few ingredients it really is quite tasty. ;) You can also do the same thing with rice instead of noodles - opt out of the can of soup, and add extra salt and some pepper. YUM!