Homemade Chicken Soup Recipe

Posted by Hillary on October 2nd, 2008 at 02:37pm

Traditional “feel good” “cure-all” mom’s homemade chicken soup is a sure-fire hit and a time-tested budget stretcher. Filled with savory stock, chopped carrots, celery, onion, garlic, rice, and if desired, elbow macaroni, this recipe makes a “big pot” to feed the biggest clan or to save for leftovers the next day.

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Ingredients

Leftover chicken parts from cutting a whole chicken up (cost: $0.75)
2 or 3 carrots, cleaned and sliced (cost: $0.40)
2 stalks celery, cleaned and chopped (cost: $0.40)
1/4 of small onion (cost $0.35)
2 cloves fresh garlic or 1/4 tsp. garlic powder (cost: $0.12)
1 C. uncooked long cooking white rice (cost: $0.35)
1 C. elbow macaroni cookied al dente (optional) (cost: $0.50)
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. sage if desired
Other poultry seasoning if desired,
1 can stewed tomatoes (optional)

Directions

Start early in day or a day ahead. Put just the chicken parts and water in a big pot, add 1 tsp. salt. I use/save the “parts” off a whole chicken that I previously cut up or roasted. I save the parts like, wings, liver, heart, neck, etc. and I put these in freezer until I need them to make the soup. You can also freeze or save the ” whole carcass,” the leftover meats bits and parts that are “too fine” to carve off. They will boil off just fine and you get a surprising amount of meat from this.

Since you count the cost of the chicken in the “first meal prepared” this is really basically a “freebie ” meal. (No meat cost, or very little). Boil until meat is falling off the bones. Let water cool to lukewarm. Get out a big bowl. Put both your clean hands in the warm water and lift out into the bowl everything you can feel. Feel around real good in the warm stock pot water to make sure you have not missed a small bone. Now get out an “extra” large bowl or pot to use as a “refuse’ receptacle. Go through the stuff in the first big bowl and “separate it out” good meat into the warm stock pot water, all skin and bones into the “refuse” bowl.

By the time you finish, the first big bowl will be empty and all the meat will be in the stock pot and all the refuse in the “extra” pot. I like to “splinter up” the meat with my fingers into little slivers and chunks, particularly breaking up the heart and liver chunks.into little meat bites, as I am “sorting”. To the pot add chopped onion,chopped celery and sliced carrots. (Important! If you forgot to add salt when you boiled the chicken you need to add it now! But I think it gives the meat better flavor to salt water before cooking the meat.)

Add 1/4 tsp. black pepper or to taste. Add 1/8 tsp. to 1/4 tsp. garlic powder or you can use 2 crushed clove garlic. If you have other poultry seasoning you can add them, maybe 1/4 tsp. sage. Start the pot warming back up again, bring to a second boil. Some people like to add a can of stewed tomatoes here. This raises the cost of the dish. But it is good. After about half an hour (long enough for the carrots to cook some), add the 1 C. uncooked white rice. If you want to add the elbow macaroni, first, while the big pot has been turned on and you are waiting for it to come to second boil, in a separate 2 qt saucepan, boil the dry macaroni noodles. Cook them just until they are “al dente” or maybe even still slightly crunchy, because once you drain them and add to the stock pot they will continue to get cooked, and you don’t want them to get mushy. I usually cook and drain them and then just set them aside til it is time to add the dry white rice. Then I add both into the stock part at the same time. Cook about another 30 minutes and you are ready to eat!

Total Meal Cost: $2.52

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Tags: budget cooking recipes, chicken soup, chicken soup recipes, homemade chicken soup

Under budget cooking+ chicken+ soups Tags: budget cooking recipes, chicken soup, chicken soup recipes, homemade chicken soup