Try this Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup recipe, or contribute your own.
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion chopped
- 2 boneless chicken breasts
- 2 cups carrots peeled and chopped
- 3 stalks celery chopped
- 6 cups low sodium chicken broth
- 2 1/2 cups noodles
- 3 tablespoons dried thyme
- Carbohydrate 64.4213197418913 g
- Cholesterol 129.634 mg
- Fat 9.93755295571575 g
- Fiber 5.62121706308098 g
- Protein 49.3509834281343 g
- Saturated Fat 2.38963714664569 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (624g)
- Sodium 1661.80406818447 mg
- Sugar 58.8001026788103 g
- Trans Fat 1.12209030309439 g
- Calories 551 calories
Step-by-step
- Place whole chicken breasts on the bottom and top with carrots, onion, celery, garlic, olive oil, thyme and bay leaf.
- Next add in chicken broth, water, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Cover and cook on low heat 6 – 7 hours.
- Remove cooked chicken breasts and cut into bite sized pieces. Place chicken back in to the crockpot.
- Now add in egg noodles and parsley.
- Cover and cook just until noodles are tender, 5-10 minutes.
Adding the noodles during the final ten minutes of cooking prevents the starches from dissolving entirely into the broth and turning the starch structure pasty. Historically, early domestic cooks relied on dried or salted provisions that behaved quite differently in prolonged heat compared to fresh vegetables. When fresh root vegetables like carrots and celery simmer for six to seven hours alongside boneless chicken breasts, their cellular walls break down completely, releasing natural sugars and aromatic compounds into the surrounding liquid. This long extraction process yields a deeply infused broth that quick-cooking methods cannot replicate. Dried herbs, such as the three tablespoons of thyme specified here, release their essential oils slowly over hours, whereas fresh herbs added at that stage would lose their volatile compounds entirely. Separating the cooking phases into a long simmer for the base and a brief, high-heat finish for the pasta protects the texture of each component. Boneless chicken breasts cooked for this duration reach an internal temperature well above 165 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing the meat fibers to relax so they shred easily with two forks. Low sodium chicken broth provides a controlled saline baseline, preventing the soup from becoming overly concentrated as the water volume reduces through steam loss during the long slow-cooker cycle. Egg noodles require only five to ten minutes in hot liquid to rehydrate and cook through without absorbing all the remaining moisture. Preserved pantry staples historically demanded extended simmering to soften, but modern recipes must carefully stagger addition times to accommodate delicate ingredients like pasta.
