This gluten-free chicken noodle soup is the result of finding whole White Oak Pastures pastured chicken at our local food co-op.
If you’re not familiar with the definition of “pastured” as it relates to chicken, it’s similar to “grass-fed” for beef: it means that the chicken roamed around on pasture during its life, probably pecking at bugs and seeds, warmed by the sun, socializing with the rest of its flock. This is in stark contrast to how most chickens are raised (in a dusty windowless barn if not a cage with floorspace barely the size of an 8.5” x 11” piece of paper.
There aren’t many chicken recipes on this blog, because it’s hard to find pastured chicken. Now that we have a source, we’re enjoying chicken much more frequently in things like this gluten-free chicken noodle soup! We roasted the whole chicken and made broth with what was left after we took all the meat off the bones. You can make this with homemade chicken stock or store-bought, whichever is a better fit for your lifestyle.
In order to make this recipe even more versatile, it simply calls for cups of chopped cooked chicken. If you’ve roasted a bird and have meat from that, great! If you bought a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket, use that! Did you cook some boneless skinless chicken breasts? You guessed it, that will work just fine.
Where the noodles are concerned, I chose gluten-free. You can do wheat noodles or leave them out entirely (I bought some egg pasta for Matt but he decided the soup didn’t need them!). I also paired it with a gluten-free—grain-free, in fact, made of tapioca flour—crusty baguette to soak up the last delicious drops of the soup.
Chicken Noodle Soup (with gluten-free noodles)
- Prep Time: 40 min
- Cook Time: 50 min
- Total Time: 1 hr
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 carrots, chopped
- 4 stalks celery, chopped
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tsp minced or grated fresh ginger
- 3 – 5 cups chopped cooked chicken
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 – 5 cups cooked noodles (I used gluten-free, omit for a Whole30 option)
- Salt and black pepper, to taste
- Fresh herbs, such as parsley, dill, or thyme (optional)
- Fresh lemon juice (optional)
Instructions
- Warm the olive oil in a large, thick-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, and celery, and cook until the onions are translucent.
- Add the garlic, ginger, chicken, chicken stock, and bay leaves and bring to a simmer. Let simmer for 15 – 30 minutes or until the carrots are soft.
- Stir in the cooked noodles and add salt and black pepper, to taste. Ladle into bowls for serving and stir in fresh herbs and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, if using.
