Hearty Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Contributed By: Adventures in Freeze Drying: For Beginners

This recipe makes 16 cups.

Directions:

1. Dice the carrots, celery and onions.  Mince the garlic or run it through a garlic press.
2. In a large stock pot, combine your vegetables, chicken backs and carcasses, and all desired spices and seasonings. Pour in 24 cups of water.
3. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil over medium-high heat. Once boiling, reduce the heat to low and let it simmer gently for 4–6 hours. This long simmer helps extract deep flavors.
4. After the simmering period, add 4 lbs of chicken breasts to the pot. Continue simmering on low heat for an additional 1 hour to ensure the chicken cooks thoroughly.
5. Remove all the chicken (both breasts and any additional meat from bones) and bones from the broth. Divide the broth (with vegetables) and the chicken meat into separate containers and refrigerate overnight until completely cooled.
6. Once chilled, chop the chicken breasts into small pieces. Smaller pieces will rehydrate more evenly later. If desired, pick any extra meat from the bones for added texture.
7. Carefully remove as much fat as possible from the surface of the chilled broth and vegetables. This step helps achieve a cleaner flavor and a lighter final product.
8. Return the defatted broth and vegetables to the stock pot. Bring the mixture back to a boil.
9. Add your noodles to the boiling broth. Cook until they are about 98% done—this slight undercooking ensures they won’t become mushy when reconstituted later.
10. Pre-freeze.  To make it simpler to transport and keep the weight under the limit, I put the soup in bags.  Using a ladle, pour approximately 2 cups of the soup into quart-sized freezer baggies. Lay the baggies flat in the freezer to help them freeze evenly.
11. Once frozen, remove the baggies and place them on a lined tray. Limit to two baggies per tray to respect the weight limits of your freeze dryer.
12. Freeze dry (my cycle time was 46 hours)
13. Store in jars for short-term use or in mylar bags for long-term storage.

Rehydration:

Combine 2 cups freeze-dried soup and 2 cups of boiling water.  Cover and let sit for at least 5 minutes, stirring a couple times.  This is about 2 servings. Enjoy

Notes:

This is a great recipe to portion using dividers if you don’t freeze the soup in the baggies as noted above.  Just portion the tray into 4 sections, which should be about 2 cups per portion.

Homemade chicken noodle soup like this offers a far healthier alternative to store-bought versions. With generous chunks of tender chicken and vibrant vegetables, each bowl is both nourishing and satisfying.

Nutritional Value Per 1 cup

Calories: 390   Protein: 35 g   Fat: 5 g   Carbohydrates: 49 g   Sugar: 5 g   Fiber: 4 g

Cycle times & rehydration for reference only. Your results may vary.