About the Recipe
Hot delicious homemade chicken and rice soup is a great alternative to Chicken Noodle Soup.
Forget the idea of simmering chicken bones, onions, carrots, and celery for hours. You don’t have to do that for a great chicken soup now. You can now buy commercially prepared chicken stock, also labeled as broth. But even better is chicken base. Chicken base, which is the stock concentrated down to a paste, allows you to create the broth strength you want.
I use base in all my recipes. I don’t have hours and stove space to simmer bones for hours/days and there are excellent commercial options that are now available to home cooks. Bases were created to give chefs a time-saving step in the kitchen and it works. Mix the base with water and bring to a boil. Want it more flavorful or saltier, simply add more base to the stock and you are done.
Chicken and Rice Soup
Ingredients
Soup
Cornstarch Slurry
Noodles
Instructions
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Soup Instructions
In a large pot, melt butter, and saute onions until translucent
Add chicken stock, bring the stock to a boil, and reduce to a simmer.
Add chopped celery, carrots, and thyme.
Simmer until the celery and carrots are tender to your liking.
In a separate pot, boil one gallon of water with 2 Tablespoons of salt.
Cook 1 pound package of wide egg noodles to al dente.
Drain and chill with cold water to stop the cooking process.
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Optional step: Combine cornstarch with 1/2 C water, and mix thoroughly until starch is completely dissolved and a slurry is formed. Bring broth to a boil, and add cornstarch slurry to the broth while stirring constantly for 3 minutes to cook the cornstarch and thicken the broth.
Now, turn off the heat and add the chicken and noodles. Stir to mix the soup. Â
Season with salt and pepper and/or more chicken base to taste.
Serve immediately with toasted French bread or crackers, or keep warm on the stove in the pot so people can help themselves. An enamel-coated cast iron pot works well for this. It will hold heat for a long time without the stove flame or heat source.
