Rotisserie Chicken Soup with Grandma’s Noodles

Rotisserie Chicken Soup with my grandmother’s noodles is comfort food at its best. I bought a rotisserie chicken from Costco and thought I would take it through the whole process of making broth from the bones in the Instant Pot, my beloved grandmother’s thick noodles, and finally soup with the meat from the chicken, some vegetables, and the incredible bone broth. I wanted to see if it was worth the effort from start to finish. It still takes some effort, but there really is nothing like homemade chicken noodle soup on a cold winter’s day. This version with big chunks of chicken, tender carrots, and thick, hearty noodles is incredibly tasty and satisfying. It will make you feel all warm inside, even down to your toes.

I have posted a recipe for Instant Pot Bone Broth before, but I have done it again for this post, so you don’t have to go back and forth. Making your own bone broth is easy and tastes fantastic. And making the noodles is fun and not complicated. The whole process took me most of the day with soup for dinner. (Most of the time, it was just sitting cooking away with no work involved.) But you can split it up over a couple of days.

My beloved grandmother was from Oklahoma and raised my dad and his siblings in rural Kansas. She knew how to make good down-home dishes that were always satisfying and just tasted wonderful using simple ingredients they had on hand. She is where I really learned my love of food. When I was young, we often drove to Salinas, about a 1 ½ hour drive away from the Bay Area, where she had an apartment. The smell of an incredible cooked meal always greeted us as we walked in the door. And there was always enough food to feed an army with all kinds of incredible dishes. My earliest memory from my childhood is of her opening the door with a freshly baked cherry pie.

My favorite by far, however, was her noodles. They were a very simple dish of these very thick noodles, using milk and eggs, cooked in chicken broth until it was gone, leaving these very flavorful, almost dumpling-like noodles that I could not get enough of. Though she wonderfully wrote down how she made them, among other recipes, for me in a little cookbook that I treasure more than almost anything. The noodles are not the prettiest dish one could make. But oh, do they taste the epitome of home cooking and comfort food. Adding them to chicken soup makes them even better. They take far longer than traditional pasta to cook, but be patient. They will reward you with thick, almost dumpling-like noodles that are so delicious and make this soup fantastic. When rolling the dough out, you don’t want to roll it too thin. The idea is to have thick, hearty noodles.

If you don’t own an Instant Pot, you could make your own broth on the stove or use store-bought. However, I love my Instant Pot and use it to make various dishes. You can find one on Amazon here. (I get a small commission at no cost to you from Amazon. If you use any link on this page, please consider helping fund my food journey.) I also used a Dutch oven to make the soup from Amazon, which I use for sourdough bread baking as well, and I find it invaluable.

Ok, that is all for this week. It was fun to go through the whole process from buying a chicken at Cosco to Rotisserie Chicken Soup. Chicken noodle soup is one of the best ways to warm you up on a cold winter’s day. Homemade is taking it to a whole different level of goodness, the flavors and textures of this soup are incredible compared to any store-bought version you could find. I encourage you to make a big pot of this soup to warm your soul. I’ll be doing that many times this winter. I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. Please think of others in your choices. We all need to get through this together in this crazy world. Until next time!

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Rotisserie Chicken Soup with Grandma’s Noodles

Rotisserie Chicken Soup with thick homemade noodles is comfort food at its best. Using an instant pot makes the best homemade soup.

Course: Dinner, Soup

Cuisine: American

Keyword: chicken soup, costco chicken, homemade chicken soup, homemade soup, Instant Pot, instant pot soup, rotisserie chicken

Servings: 10 cups

Ingredients

For the Chicken Bone Broth

• bones of a rotisserie chicken meat removed and reserved
• 2 carrots peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 celery stalks chopped
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 cloves garlic smashed
• 2 bay leaves
• A few sprigs of rosemary and or thyme or a teaspoon dried
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Noodles

• 2 ½ cups flour
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup milk

Soup

• 1 tablespoon olive oil or bacon fat
• 1 onion diced
• 4 carrots peeled and thickly sliced
• 2 celery stalks diced
• ½ cup vermouth or white wine optional
• 8 cups Chicken bone broth made from a rotisserie chicken or chicken broth
• 2-3 cups cooked chicken cut into 1-inch pieces (from the rotisserie chicken)
• ¼ cup chopped parsley
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

For the bone broth

1. Place all the ingredients in the Instant Pot.
2. Fill with water to cover the bones and vegetables. Do not fill higher than 1 inch below the max fill line.
3. Close the Instant Pot lid and turn the steam release valve to the sealing position.
4. For bone broth, pressure cook using the Pressure Cook/Manual button for 3 hours on high pressure.
5. The Instant pot will take about 30 minutes to come to pressure.
6. When the cooking time ends, let the instant pot release naturally for 30 minutes before carefully releasing any extra pressure by turning the release valve to venting.
7. Place a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl or pot, use a slotted spoon to remove any large solids, and then strain the remaining into the bowl. Discard the solids.
8. The broth can be made a day ahead.

While the broth is cooking, make the noodles.

1. Place the flour on a clean work surface or a large bowl and make a well in the center to hold the wet ingredients.
2. To the well, add the eggs and milk.
3. Using a fork, whisk the eggs and milk together with ever-increasing circles to incorporate the flour.
4. Gather the dough into a ball and knead for a minute or two to make a cohesive dough. It doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth.
5. Cover in plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.
6. Roll out the dough to be a 12 x 16-inch rectangle on a floured surface, not as thin as you would traditional pasta. This is as thin as my grandmother could roll it.
7. Roll the dough up into a long roll and slice it ½ inch thick, then each noodle into 5–6-inch lengths.
8. Toss with a bit of flour and let dry out on a board or sheet pan for several hours or until you are ready to make the soup. You can do this a day ahead.

The soup

1. Heat a large pot or Dutch oven, over medium. Add the olive oil or bacon fat.
2. Sauté the onion, carrots, and celery until the onions start to soften.
3. If you are using the vermouth, you can deglaze the pan at this point with ½ cup vermouth or white wine.
4. Carefully add the chicken broth and bring it to a boil.
5. Shake off any excess flour from the noodles and add the noodles to the boiling soup.
6. Let cook until the noodles are tender all the way through. This will take much longer than traditional noodles, as the noodles are thick. About 30-35 minutes.
7. When the noodles are cooked through, turn the heat down to simmer and add the chopped chicken, parsley, and lemon juice.
8. Let the soup simmer until the chicken is heated through.
9. Season with Salt and Pepper.

Recipe Notes

This soup is even better the next day.