If your family craves homemade chicken noodle soup when they are under the weather reach for this instead of the familiar red and white can. When you can your own soup, you know that you aren’t feeding your family deadly neurotoxins in the form of MSG, which is present in nearly ALL conventional canned soups on the market.
This soup has everything but the noodles, and the reason for this is that noodles break down and turn into a goopy mess when they are canned. Some people will tell you that they have canned soup with noodles for years and that the noodles are perfect, but this has not been my experience. When you’re ready to eat the soup, simply pour it into a pot, bring it to a boil and throw in the amount of pasta that you want.
You can make this with any kind of poultry and when it’s serving time you can add whatever works for you at the moment: pasta, rice, orzo and barley are all delicious additions. If you’re feeding someone with a tummy ailment, add a little bit of ginger to the soup when you are re-heating it.
Ingredients:
Ingredients:- 8 boneless skinless chicken thigh or 4 breasts
- 2 cups of carrots, cut in circles
- I cup of chopped celery
- 1 cup of finely grated onion
- 8 cloves of fresh garlic, mashed to release oils
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 tbsp of oregano
- 1 tbsp of basil
- 1 tbsp of thyme
- 1tbsp of salt
- Water as needed
Directions:
- In a stockpot, simmer chicken in water with your herbs and salt until it is fork tender and you can shred it (about 1 hour). Don’t add your veggies – just chicken and seasonings.
- Drain chicken, reserving cooking liquid. Discard the bay leaves.
- Divide the chicken, celery, onion, and carrots evenly and layer the ingredients in your sanitized jars.
- Pour your cooking liquid into the jars and then top them up with water until you have one inch of headspace remaining. You will look at this and say, wow, there is way more liquid than chicken and veggies – but that’s important because you need additional liquid for serving time, when you cook the pasta in this.
- Lid your jars and p-can at 11-12 pounds for 90 minutes, adjusting for altitude.
Do you really have to cook the chicken first? Is it because it would be difficult to divide the spices per jar? Just askin!
Joyce – Nope, you don’t have to cook the chicken first – exactly as you thought, it is to even out the seasonings. You can use raw chicken or turkey for this, or even leftovers like in the recipe on this article: https://www.theorganicprepper.com/canning-the-christmas-turkey-12262012
Daisy
Personally I would not use boneless because many healing properties are found in the bones. There is much to be said for bone broth. So if you are looking for a healing soup – use a bone-in chicken. If you’re in a prepping mindset and canning up chicken, you’ll want those extra calories and the fat so use a bone-in chicken. Thighs are a great size for canning in pint or quart sized jars. Thighs are cheap too. And you don’t have to cook the chicken first. I would not add the spices to the jar, just salt. Save the spices for when you open the jars and are ready to prepare.
Two questions:
1. How do the soup companies make canned soup without turning the noodles into goop?
2. If you add uncooked, dry noodles into the jars with the rest of your soup mix, and then pressure can, do you still end up with goopy noodles?
Hi –
1.) That’s a really good question. I don’t know if their canning process is different or not. Maybe it’s the preservatives? I just don’t know.
2.) I’ve tried it that way and yes, they turn out terrible. You are cooking at 245 degrees (which of course, is above boiling temp) for 90 minutes. I’m not sure if it’s the high temp, the long cooking time or sitting on the shelf for a while that causes it.
Some suggestions if you want the soup to be ready faster than the 10-15 minutes to boil pasta would be to use “cellophane noodles” – they are very fine and cook extremely quickly. They are made from starch such as such as mung bean starch, yam, potato starch, cassava or canna starch. Also, rice vermicelli cooks very quickly as well.
You can always give it a try – you might have better luck than I’ve had. The firmest noodles are usually whole wheat noodles. Maybe make one jar with noodles and the rest without so that you are sure not to waste much if it doesn’t turn out. 🙂
Daisy
IMO it is better to leave out the noodles. Chicken broth can be used for so many dishes and so easy to grab off the shelf for your recipes. In my family some like noodles, some like rice, and some just like crackers, so I just boil the noodles or rice separately and add to plain soup as needed.
I just discovered your site, and i thank you! very informative, and is making me miss the country life in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I am from Jersey, but not my family. 🙂
Can you add rice to this recipe? Then you wouldn’t need noodles… I’ve never canned with rice at all, do you know how to??
Oh, and I just found your website, and AM IN LOVE IT! There is so much information here, I am so excited to show this to my prepper group!!
Shannon ~ Rice gets pretty mushy and soaks up a lot of liquid. I’ve tried it, and the results really weren’t the greatest. I would recommend that you can it as is, and then just add your carbohydrate at serving time. You can actually dehydrate cooked rice and make your own “minute rice” without the commercial processing. As well, there are some Asian noodles that are very quick cooking, like cellophane noodles.
Thank you very much for the kind words – I’m really glad you found the information helpful! 🙂
Daisy
Hi Daisy,
Just found your site and I love it! I see that you mention making your own “minute” stype rice without the processing. Do you have instructions for this?
Hi Missy! Welcome. 🙂
You cook it as normal (no seasoning, though) and then you drain it well. Put it in your dehydrator for 8-12 hours, or until it is completely dried. Then, when it’s time to serve it, simply add boiling water and let it sit, covered, for about 5 minutes to rehydrate it.
Can I use a conventional pressure cooker and would the cooking time change?
How many jars does this make? My pressure canner can hold 7 quart jars at one time.
That makes 8 quarts, but you can easily adjust it down by just dividing the ingredients over 7 jars and using less water. 🙂