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GF Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup!

Along with my emotional and physical sensitivities, I also was endowed with some food sensitivities. With a superpower always comes a kryptonite, right? After taking an extensive food intolerance blood test years ago, I realized that gluten was no longer welcome in my pantry - among many other things.


Anyone who is gluten free, or has any kind of food sensitivity knows how important, and time-consuming, meal-prep is.

One of the things I really missed when I first became gluten free was chicken noodle soup. Making it gluten free though was an easy modification, and the best part about making a big pot of soup is you've got a warm yummy easy meal for days afterwards!

Here's how I make my homemade (okay, almost entirely homemade) soup...

the FULL recipe!

*with detailed instructions for newbie foodies


Highly Sensitive Empath

Ingredients:

Note: I try to get organic everything when I can, so just assume I mean organic ingredients unless told otherwise... lol

-Chicken Broth, I like Pacific Brand (Sidenote: sometimes I get bone broth, sometimes not. There are health benefits to each. Bone broth can be great for your health for several reasons, but depending on your immune system and specific gut bacteria, it can make your gut even more unhappy. Do some research on your own if you're curious, or see how you feel eating one or the other) You can get low sodium broth as well, so you can control how much salt is in the soup. You can also opt for Vegetable Broth if you want to make this vegetarian. -Your favorite organic soup veggies: My go to's are carrots, celery, and mushrooms

-Chicken: can be tenders, or breasts (you can also switch it up and get tofu, or get stew beef and beef broth as well)

-Garlic: a few cloves, or if you're like me, a ton of cloves :D

-Onion: one half or one full onion. I like sweet onions for this recipe, but go with whatever you like.

-Cooking oil of choice: I like to use sautéing and grilling Olive Oil

-Herbs like basil, oregano, cilantro, thyme, really whatever we're in the mood for

-Onion powder is what gives chicken soup that classic flavor, so don't skip on the onion powder if you want that nostalgic taste.

-Thin rice noodles, I like Thai Rice Noodles, found in the asian section of the ethnic food isle

-Salt and pepper as desired

-A nice sized stew pot and lid, large kitchen spoon for stirring, and ladle for serving

Now, let's get cookin'!


Instructions:

You can make any modifications you like, but for simplicity sake, I will write the steps as I would do them with the ingredients I typically choose.

  1. First, chop up onion, carrots, celery, mushrooms, and any other dense vegetables.

  2. Get out your stew pot and lid! (Your lid can hang out to the side for now. During the sautéing process, you can keep the lid off if you want to closely watch what's going on. I also like this because then the veggies don't get too mushy too fast, and I can watch them closely, and also hear that lovely sizzle sound. Once you add the broth later, then keep the lid on for the rest of the process.)

  3. Add your onion and cooking oil: about maybe just enough oil to coat the bottom of your pan (I'm guilty of not measuring things, and eyeballing amounts for recipes like this). You want there to be enough oil to coat the onion pieces so that the oil actually cooks the onion evenly. You don't want so much oil that its already a soup, and you don't want so little oil that the onion is sticking to the bottom of your pot.

  4. At this point, I usually add some salt and pepper and maybe some seasonings that are "tougher" like fennel seeds and rosemary for example, that may take longer to soften. Some seasonings I wait till the end to add, but adding your seasonings at the beginning also means it has more time to blend into the broth, adding more flavor to the end result.

  5. Sauté the onion. If you don't know what sautéing is, you basically just stir, move around, and sort of "fry" the onion in the oil. You'll hear that excellent little sizzling noise. If your pot is sizzling and smoking like you're at Benihana, turn the heat down. If you don't hear it sizzling, its not cooking! Turn your heat up. Sauté until the onion beings to turn transparent, This usually takes a couple of minutes.

  6. Add and sauté your dense veggies like carrots, celery, mushrooms, and so on (greens and softer veggies like kale, fresh herbs, alfalfa sprouts I add later). Sauté those veggies till they soften a bit. If you need to add a bit more cooking oil to get that right consistency, go ahead.

  7. Add all your broth. It usually takes a good 3 cartons of Pacific Chicken Broth, which I believe is about 12 cups or so.

  8. Turn it up to a simmer and add the chicken. The boiling broth cooks the chicken. If you're concerned about safety with raw chicken, make sure you've got a good boil going, not just a tame simmer, for this stage. If you've got a strong boil, you're good.

  9. While we wait for the chicken to cook, you can chop up any other ingredients you plan to add later.

  10. After maybe about 10 minutes, or when it turns white, take the chicken out, shred/cut into bite-size pieces, and put back in. If the chicken is still partially raw on the inside, you can cut each piece in half and put back in for a few more minutes before shredding. This may happen if you are using large chicken breasts. I should note that you want to make sure your chicken is thoroughly cooked before consuming your soup!

  11. At this point is a good time to taste the broth, and add more seasonings galore! This is also when I would add things like kale, alfalfa sprouts, fresh basil, scallions, etc.

  12. Lastly, add rice noodles! Add really as much or as little as you like. I try to add enough to still have a good ratio between broth, veggies, and noodles. You can actually turn off the heat at this point. Most rice noodles just soften in hot water, and don't need to be boiled like conventional noodles. These should take about maybe 10-20 minutes depending on the thickness of the noodle you selected.

  13. When the noodles and chicken are thoroughly cooked, your soup is ready to eat! Well, let that steaming pot cool down a big first. Helps to take the lid off at this point, then ladle into a bowl to separate a portion from the entire pot, and wait a bit more. So hard to wait, I know! Add an ice cube?? :P

For a fun twist, I like adding some asian flare to my soup by including things like scallion, bok choy, fresh ginger, fresh Thai basil, and soy sauce (make sure it's gluten free or tamari though!). I like Kikkoman's gluten free version best. Scallion, fresh basil, and soy sauce I would add at the very end. Boy choy you can add about the time you add things like kale or sprouts.

Enjoy!

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