Years ago  I lived in NYC. My roommate Carol came in and asked what I was going. I said making chicken soup.  She asked with what? I said a chicken of course!  For Carol, soup comes out of a can! One of several Carol stories I will tell on this site! 

With this recipe simple ingredients come together for a fabulous tasty soup. It is hearty and delicious! We enjoy spicing it up with fresh ground black pepper. Freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano is a nice touch too!

Please Read First! 
Read the recipe first. If you do not want to go through the added steps of pulling out the carrots and celery... then you will want to change the prep of the veggies. To save some time, you can chop the carrots and celery into small bite size pieces and then you just need to debone the chicken. Yes you could save time using boneless chicken too, but we do not recommend it. Without the bones - you will lose a lot of flavor. 

6 Large Bowls or
12 Large Mugs (for Soup and sandwich!)

Active time:   30 Minutes 
Cook Time:  1 1/2 hours, or longer if  desired

1 Whole Chicken (approximately 5 pounds)
1 Medium Onion 
4 Celery Stalks 
5 Carrots (large, or adjust accordingly)
1 Tablespoon Dried Thyme
1 Bay Leaf
1 Teaspoon Salt (add more to taste once cooked)
Fresh Ground Pepper to taste

Optional
Freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese

Chicken Prep:  Remove gizzards and neck from chicken cavity.  Rinse out chicken.and put in an 8 Quart stock pot.

Veggie Prep:  Peel carrots and then cut into 1 inch pieces. Rinse and then cut off ends of the celery and cut into 1 inch pieces. Peel onion and cut into quarters. Put all veggies in pot with chicken. 

Combine the Ingredients: Add water to pot, enough to cover the chicken. Using a spoon, push the chicken down to fill the cavity with water, eliminating any air pockets. 

Add salt, thyme, Bay Leaf and fresh ground pepper.  

Initial Cooking:
Put the stock pot on the stovetop and cook for approximately an hour.  Start on high heat to get it to a boil, then reduce to keep it simmering. 

Deboning and Veggies
After an hour remove the pot from the stove. Pull the chicken out and place in a large bowl or roasting pan. While that cools a bit, pull out the celery pieces and place in a strainer. Push down to draw the juice out of the celery and put the juice back into the stock pot. Then throw the celery away.  Then pull out the carrots and put into a bowl and use a potato masher to mash the carrots. Once mashed, put the carrots back into the soup. Leave the onions in as is.  

Now pull off the skin and place in the bowl that had the carrots, this is now your refuse bow.  Then start to pull the chicken off the bone in about 1 inch or bite size chunks (irregular pieces - emphasizes that it is homemade) and place back into the soup. Keep removing the chicken and placing the chicken into the soup, while placing any bones into the refuse bowl, until all of the chicken is off the bone.  

Once the celery juice, carrots and chicken are back in the stock pot, put the pot back on the stove again and cook for at least another 15 - 20 minutes.  

The Noodles: 
You can cook the pasta in the soup but that will sometimes soak up too much of the soup liquid. So we recommend cooking the pasta separately. Start to heat up the water (add some - but not too much salt) while you are pulling the chicken from the bones, so that it is boiling when you are ready to cook the pasta. 

Cook the pasta until it is al dente (Italian for a little firm). We use Ditalini (small tube pasta)  as it is a great pasta for soup. But any smaller noodle (e.g., small shells) will work.  You can either add the pasta to the soup once cooked (recommended if eating it all at one time) or you can place pasta in each bowl and then pour the soup on top (If you are preparing soup for several days - this is recommended).