OG grandma chicken noodle soup
As an adult who has outgrown canned soup sludge and now makes homemade stock as a form of recreation, I decided to replicate my grandmother’s chicken soup based on memory and smell: whole chicken carcasses, Italian parsley, thick-cut carrots, little noodles.
Only after “perfecting” a rendition of it did my mother inform me that I was totally wrong about almost every aspect of my grandmother’s recipe, technique, and ingredient list. It’s because I made it the way I thought made sense from a memory, not reality, like a painting of a photo. So I asked her for the correct instructions. Of course, her recipe had never been written down.
What kind of grandma chicken noodle can you make with no grandmother?
Turns out, a pretty good one. You know how in Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter watches a man he thinks is his dad conjure a patronus from across a lake so he doesn’t get eaten by dementors, but in fact he’s the one who went back in time and did it because he finally recognized nobody else was going to do it for him if he didn’t do it, but only ever realized he had the power to do it because he knew he’d already done it? (I say “you know,” but don’t worry if you don’t.)
This soup, for me, is like that. I became my own soup grandmother.
This soup requires the absolute biggest pot you have. The first time I made it, I used a 5 quart Dutch oven that I thought looked big enough but was close to the top when I was finally ready to cook, which of course boiled over and flooded one of my gas burners. Don’t be like me—be like my actual grandmother, who had a 12 quart aluminum cauldron for tasks like this tucked away up above the stove that probably cost $5 in 1950s money. Cheap, industrial-size stock pots meant to feed a family of 8 are the true Italian way. Here’s a fancy one I just purchased. It’s only 8 quarts. It’s perfect.
The homemade stock, golden from onion skins and slick with a little fat from the skin-on chicken, is what makes it not just a soup but an old world soup, a true representation of the grandma tradition whether your grandma is from the old world or the current one. Everything beyond that step is really up to you. Choose your own adventure. Be your own soup grandmother. I believe in you.
Adapted from Molly Baz via Bon Appetit.
RECIPE
There’s a reason the soul needs it. This is a traditional old-school chicken soup with a proper Grandma vibe, using easier-to-handle, skin-on chicken parts rather than a whole chicken. The resulting golden stock is good enough to drink all by itself, but we add carrots, celery, and noodles to keep it classic.
Effortful time: 30 minutes
Total time: 2 hours
Serves: 6
YOU NEED
2 large bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts
2 whole chicken legs
2 medium onions
8 carrots, divided
8 celery stalks, divided
16 cups water
2 heads of garlic
1 tbsp. black peppercorns
4 tsp. sea salt
1 tbsp. dry parsley
12 small sprigs dill, divided
8 oz. ditalini
Freshly ground black pepper
MAKE IT
Prep your stock vegetables. Halve the 2 onions, leaving on the skins (you can, however, take off the stickers and fluffy root ends). You’ll drain your stock later, and the skins are important to making the broth golden. Peel 2 of your carrots and chop into thirds. Chop 2 celery stalks into thirds, too. Cut your 2 garlic heads in half crosswise, creating a “bottom” with the root and a “top” where the cloves meet.
Assemble your stock. In your absolute biggest stock pot, nestle the chopped onions, carrots, celery, and garlic heads along with the raw chicken, 1 tbsp. peppercorns, 4 tsp of salt, and 6 sprigs of dill. Fill with 16 cups of cold water (tap is fine).
Simmer your stock. Fire up the heat to medium and bring to a low simmer. Try as hard as you can not to boil it — it makes the chicken tough, and it will make the broth foamy and cloudy. Around 20-25 minutes after you hit a simmer, your chicken breasts should be around 160°F and ready to shred.
Shred the chicken breasts only. Remove the chicken breasts to a board. When cool, remove the skin, and very carefully separate the chicken from the bones. Chicken breasts in particular can have tiny bones and other hard bits to watch out for, so be careful. Shred the meat and cover in foil. Toss the remaining chicken skins and bones.
Simmer your stock some more. Another 40 minutes at least, skimming any fat that rises up. This ensures the thighs, which are tougher, will be fall-apart tender.
Prep your soup vegetables. Peel and chop remaining 6 carrots into bite sized coins. Slice the 6 stalks of celery into 1/2” thick pieces. Finely chop 6 more sprigs of dill and reserve off to the side.
Shred the remaining chicken. After 40 minutes, remove the chicken legs from the soup to the board you used earlier. Remove the skin and bones, then shred the meat. Turn the stove off. Take a moment to appreciate that your house probably smells like soup from the street.
Strain the stock. Put a fine mesh sieve over a large container — I use a huge Pyrex measuring glass for this purpose — and strain the soup broth. Throw away the random crap you catch in the strainer. Give the stock pot a light wiping (it’ll be hot) and put it back on the stove.
Build the final soup. Very carefully pour or ladle the broth back in your stock pot and heat it over medium. Add 8oz. of ditalini**, the dry parsley, and your newly-chopped vegetables into the pot. Simmer on medium-low for 5 minutes, then add the chicken and simmer for 5 more minutes or until the vegetables are tender and the pasta is cooked through.
Season the soup. Sprinkle the chopped dill into the pot and stir. Have a taste and add more salt if you need, or lemon juice if you’d like it a little lighter and brighter.
Serve the soup. Ladle into big, cozy bowls with big, cozy spoons.
** If you’d like to freeze some for a future respiratory virus, you can skip adding the pasta at this step and make it separately on the stove instead, cooking just as much as you need at that time (1 oz per serving). The first time I made this, I froze the noodles in my leftover soup, which got bloaty and mushy when I reheated it. I’ll usually just spoon the cooked pasta into a bowl, then ladle the soup over it. Ta da.
You can reheat this soup straight from frozen: just pop whatever container you’ve stored it in into the microwave for about a minute to loosen it, then “stove defrost” the icy soup brick by putting it into a small dutch oven with 1/2 cup of hot water. Once it’s thawed down to liquid again, add dry noodles and cook for 10 more minutes.