My kids were sick with a cold all last week and passed it right along to my husband and I. We have been battling it the whole weekend and have felt terrible. We decided last night that I needed to make some chicken noodle soup for dinner tonight. Something about this kind of soup really does make your body feel better. That, and eating a ton of this pickled garlic, they really do a body good.

Some recipes I make I would never change a thing. Others, I think can use a few tweaks here and there to make them better and improve on the quality or the flavor of the dish. I have been making chicken noodle soup for a long, long time. I always make it the same way, every time. I use only boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cook them in a pan, in a little butter and olive oil. Then I shred them and add them back into the soup when the noodles are almost done. I also use wide egg noodles every time. I have always gotten a lot of great comments on my soup and everyone here seems to love it. However, this time I decided I was going to try using a whole chicken and also try some of the homemade, frozen egg noodles/dumplings you can buy in the store, instead of the bag of dried pasta I normally use.

My mom had to run some errands today, and since I felt like death warmed over, she stopped in at the grocery for me. She found these in the frozen section for me to use. At first, I wasn’t sure how these were going to work, but they turned out to give a really great dimension and flavor to the soup that we loved.

I got to looking at the package and in the top left corner, it said, “Yes to dumplings, no to drugs!” I cracked up.

I then proceed to make the very best pot of chicken noodle soup I have ever made. This package of dumplings are really just like very flat egg noodles, but they are very large. I cut them in half just so they wouldn’t be so long, but were still very wide.

I think the next time I would also cut them in half down the center. They said that they needed to cook 30-35 minutes, but I found 25 minutes was perfect.

If you cannot find these dumplings, or something similar in the freezer section of your grocery, you can absolutely use the regular wide egg noodles in the dry pasta section. You will add them in at the same time as these in the recipe, but cook them for the time suggested on the package.

**For the gluten free version, just substitute a GF egg noodle or dumpling.

Chicken Noodle Soup

• 1 whole chicken, cut up (I purchased one pre-cut)
• 12 teaspoons of Chicken Better Than Bouillon
• 15 cups water
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 cups carrots, sliced
• 4 cups celery, sliced
• 4 cups sweet onion, chopped
• 4 teaspoons garlic, minced
• fresh ground pepper, to taste
• 1.5 packages frozen dumpling noodles (about 16-18 ounces)

In a large stock/soup pot, over medium heat, add your cut up chicken and cover with about 10 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and boil for 30 minutes.

Remove from heat and place chicken in a large bowl to cool.

Transfer the remaining broth to another bowl and set aside.

Place your stock/soup pot back on the stove, over medium heat, add in the butter, garlic and ground pepper. I normally add salt to everything, but in this case, I thought the broth added enough saltiness. Don’t add any in until towards the end, after you have tasted it.

When the butter has melted and the garlic just begins to darken, add in all of the veggies to the pot.

I cooked these for about 4.5 minutes, stirring them up every minute so that they all cooked down evenly.

To the broth you set aside, your going to add in your Better Than Bouillon, and whisk until completely blended together. Then add in another 5 cups of water so that you have a total of about 15 cups of water/broth. Add all of this liquid to the pot with the veggies and bring to a boil.

While your waiting on your broth to boil, remove all of the meat from the chicken (discard skin and bones) and shred it up with two forks.

Once the broth is at a full rolling boil, add in your dumplings (or dried egg noodles) and stir gently until they are all combined in the broth, cover the pan. If you are using the frozen dumplings, let them boil for about 15 minutes, stirring gently every five minutes so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. At 15 minutes, add the chicken back into the pan, cover again and let them cook for an additional 10 minutes, stirring about halfway through.

Serve with crackers or some warm, crusty bread.