Chicken noodle soup (refrigerator style)

I’m writing this in the middle of a Covid-19 quarantine. After returning from Florida, the hubz, the kids and I are hanging out for a few weeks together. One thing I knew and wanted to embrace was the opportunity to make healthy and filling meals. With teenagers, you have to let go of what they eat when they are away from you and as much as my kids know about eating, there is nothing like mom’s food, right?

Today’s meal is chicken noodle soup. I only had 2 chicken breasts and wanted it to be heartier so I added Italian sausage and since I couldn’t find any spinach at the grocery store, I substituted frozen peas to add a little green. Since I’m using what I have available, I’ve added “refrigerator style” to the name. Get it? You can add anything you want to a soup once if you adhere to the order of events and the amount of flavorful liquid.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2-3 medium carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 celery stalks diced
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste
• 2 chicken breasts, chopped
• 1 lb. Italian sausage
• 1 cup peas
• 2-3 cups egg noodles
• 7 cups chicken stock
• or 3 tsp chicken base (base) with 7 cups of chicken stock
• 1 cup milk (also have used soy, almond, coconut or even creamer)

Now do this!

Melt butter in a large pot.

Add carrots and celery and sauté for 3 minutes

Season the vegetables with onion powder and garlic powder.

Season the chicken before dropping it into the pot. Add ground Italian sausage and cook until sausage is browned, stirring every so often. (The Italian sausage seasons the crap out of everything else in the pot!)

I really think the chicken base adds more flavor so if you were me, you would add 2-3 tsp of chicken base and stir, allowing to cook a minute more.

Add 7 cups of water and bring to a boil. Turn down heat to simmer for 10 minutes. If you are using straight broth, pour it in at this point and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add egg noodles and simmer for another 5 minutes

Add milk –your variation will be perfect. It makes it a bit creamier and tones down the bit your Italian sausage might have.

And then stir for a minute more and serve! Happy quarantine. 😉