Homemade Chicken & Rice Soup

The Beauty saw a Food Network chef making homemade chicken noodle soup the other night and decided that we should give it a try. A quick trip to the store and we had all the necessary ingredients to assemble our own version of this comfort-food staple, substituting rice for noodles. Unfortunately, neither of us had written the recipe down so we decided to wing it from memory.

I began our prep by dicing one large yellow onion, slicing 5-6 large stalks of celery into 1/4-inch pieces, and cutting baby carrots into bite-sized chunks. A tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil was heated in a Dutch oven until the surface of the oil began to ripple and smoke slightly, to which the vegetables were added and sauteed until the onions became transluscent. At this point, I added approximately 12 cups of water, a couple pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, a  tablespoon each of thyme and rosemary, a generous dash of kosher salt, and a few good twists from the pepper mill. The heat was turned down to medium low, the pot covered, and the whole shebang was allowed to simmer for about an hour or so to allow the chicken to cook through and turn the water into a delicious chicken stock. Meanwhile, The Beauty decided she wanted to add cubed potatoes to the soup but didn't want them to overcook and become mushy. Once the chicken was heated all the way through, we removed it from the pot to a cutting board, added the potatoes to our stock, covered it, turned the heat up a bit, and continued to simmer. In the meantime, using a couple of forks, we pulled the chicken off the bones and shredded it into bite-sized pieces. It was then covered and set aside until the potatoes were just soft enough to be pierced with a fork and then it was added back into the soup.

An interesting technique used by the Food Network chef was to cook the noodles seperately (she used small shells if I remember right) and then present them in a bowl with the soup stock ladled over the top of them. Apparently, this was to prevent the noodles from becoming overcooked and mushy. We decided to do the same with our cooked rice and the result was a delicious soup with rice that maintained its firmness and slight crunch.

Served with a piece of good, crusty, artisan bread our Homemade Chicken Soup warmed our hearts as well as our bellies!

Do you have your own Chicken Soup recipe you'd care to share? Post it to the comments section and we'll give it a try!