Chicken and Veggie Noodle Soup

Since today was a little cooler, I decided to make a soup for dinner. I had some parsnips that I wanted to use so I put them in along with typical soup veggies. They added a delicious gingery flavor to the soup. I never ate parsnips growing up but I've discovered I love them.

This had lots of veggies in it. Everything was nice and tender by the time the soup was finished. I love veggies so most of my dishes are pretty veggie heavy. This was no exception. My cutting board was overflowing with veggies when I started the soup and the combination of them in this soup had a spicy, sweet flavor. Definitely delicious. :)

I roasted a whole chicken a couple nights ago so I had a lot of leftover chicken meat in the fridge. I tore the meat into smaller pieces and dropped it in the soup. I used a mix of white and dark meat since that's what I had. This could easily be made with meat from a rotisserie chicken or by poaching some chicken in the soup and then chopping it. Either would be fantastic.

I also cooked my own dried beans for this. If you wanted to substitute canned beans, it would be about 2 cans worth of beans. Using dried beans helps me control the sodium in the soup since I don't add salt to the beans while they cook. Some of the canned beans can be quite high.

Speaking of sodium, I also used an unsalted chicken stock. This was the first time I bought Kitchen Basics stock and it was delicious! It was much darker in color than most boxed broths and stocks and it had a much richer flavor. If you don't use unsalted stock, go easy on the salt and pepper in the recipe until you see how it tastes.

This was a delicious soup that I'll certainly make again (ok... probably with some variation... I rarely make the same thing exactly the same way twice). It made a nice large pot of soup that will feed us for several more meals. Nothing beats a hot bowl of soup on a cool day. Yum!

Recipe:
3 stalks celery
3 carrots
2 medium onions
1 lb. parsnips
2 tsp. minced garlic
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. dried rosemary (crushed)
1/2 tsp. thyme leaves
1 1/2 tsp. parsley flakes
6 c. chicken stock
1 c. dried beans, cooked according to package
1 1/2 c. shredded chicken
6 oz. whole wheat egg noodles
salt and pepper to taste

1. Chop the celery, carrots, parsnips, and onions into bite sized pieces.
2. Heat a large soup pan over medium heat. Add 2 tbs. olive oil. Add veggies, 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper. Saute for 5-7 minutes until they begin to get a little tender.
3. Add chicken stock, garlic, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, and parsley. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add beans and chicken. Continue simmering for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Right after adding the beans and chicken, in a separate pot, bring 6-8 cups of water to a boil to cook the egg noodles. Boil the noodles until tender. Drain and add to the soup. Mix well to combine. Allow to simmer together for 3-5 minutes.
6. Taste soup and adjust seasoning as needed. Ladle into bowls and enjoy!