Hearty Homemade Chicken soup

We love this homemade chicken soup in the Coombes house so much we decided to share our recipe!

We buy one of those already cooked, roasted chickens that you find at Costco or your local supermarket. I also find that having 2 large stockpots/dutch ovens are needed. Cooking time is about 2 to 3 hours.

1 roasted chicken
water
4 to 5 carrots, peeled
3 stalks celery
2 medium onions, peeled
5 black peppercorns
2 cloves garlic, crushed
10 sprigs parsely (or dried)
2 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
3 cups egg noodles

1.)Make the stock: Pull off as much of the meat from the chicken and set aside. Add the chicken carcass to a large stockpot and add as much water to just cover the chicken carcass. Set stove top on medium heat. Chop all your vegetables-carrots, celery and onions, set aside to add to soup in step 2.
DO NOT THROW AWAY SCRAPS from veg. Add the scrap carrots tops/ends, celery ends, and onions scraps to the broth. Add peppercorns, garlic, 2 sprigs of parsley, thyme, and bay leaf. Bring broth to boil and then reduce heat to simmer. Cook for 1 hr (or up to 2 hrs.) Chop remaining parsley leaves, set aside.

2.)Make the soup: In my second large stockpot, I melt the butter. Add all your chopped vegetables and cook until onions are translucent-7 minutes.

Now the tricky part....remove the chicken carcass from the broth and discard. Strain the broth through a metal colander into the pot with all the cooked vegetables.
How do I do that? With the heat on low, I place the metal colander on top of the vegetables I just cooked (to free up both my hands) and then I carefully pour the broth over the colander. I discard all the scraps in the colander.

Add the chicken pieces then the salt and pepper to the veg/broth mix. Simmer until veg are tender-1 hour. Stir in egg noodles and parsley and cook for 10 minutes more. Serve hot!