Back in July, my friend, Teri, came over for a pie crust lesson and we made four different pies with four kinds of crust (single, single pre-baked, double, and double lattice-top).  Then in August, I went to her place and she taught me to cook some simple homestyle meals–the kind my hubby was raised on and that seem to be a foreign language to me.  My brain goes “fish stew, curried caulifower, red beans and rice, shrimp scampi,” and his brain goes, “steak, pot roast, fried chicken, chicken pot pie.”  Our brainwaves needed to be synched up and Teri was up to the challenge of teaching me how to cook like the Midwestern housewife I am.  Except I’m not a housewife, really, since I work, but you get the point.

We made several of her family’s favorite meals and she taught me to make chicken noodles almost as an afterthought without a recipe.  The only chicken noodles I’ve ever had are those at our family reunion every year brought by someone I’m not even sure I’m related to, and I was excited to learn how to make them because they are one of the dishes I enjoy most each year.  I just LOVE me some egg noodles.  Something about their texture…I adore it.  Thick with some bite to them and they soak up all the yummy flavor of whatever you cook them in, in this case, chicken!

As the title indicates, there isn’t much to this recipe.  Pretty much just chicken and noodles cooked in broth!  I did add (too much) turmeric because I wanted to give them a yellow tint but I went overboard, as you can see.  The above picture are the leftovers from the batch Teri and I made, with no turmeric added, and the other ones are mine, which I added 1/2 teaspoon to, so I’d recommend just a pinch at a time if you want yours to have a little extra color.  I also added thyme to mine because I love the flavor of thyme with chicken, but if you want classic chicken noodles, just stick with the recipe and don’t go rogue like I did.

This is a very simple recipe and even the noodles go pretty fast.  If you want to go a slower and more flavorful route, you can boil an entire chicken, which will also give you your own homemade broth.

Chicken Noodles

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

2 (32 oz.) cartons chicken broth (8 cups)
4 chicken bouillon cubes
3 lbs. skinless, boneless chicken breasts
6 eggs
¼ cup cold water
2 teaspoons salt
4-5 cups all-purpose flour

Pour the chicken broth into a stockpot. Add the bouillon cubes and the chicken breasts and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until tender and no longer pink in the middle, 5-10 minutes. Turn off heat & remove chicken from broth onto a plate to cool.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, water, and salt. Stir in enough flour to form a stiff dough. Flour a surface to roll the dough out on and pull off small chunks of dough at a time (about 1/6 of the dough) with floured hands to roll thin. Use plenty of flour on the outside, adding more as you roll so it doesn’t stick to the surface or rolling pin. Use a rotary mincer or pizza cutter to cut the noodles and separate them onto a plate.

You’ll have about 6 batches of noodles this size. It’s important to do them in batches instead of all at once to prevent them from clumping together when adding them to the broth.

After you’ve cut your first batch of noodles, turn the heat back on your broth to bring it to a boil. While waiting on that, shred the cooled chicken your fingers or two forks. When you’re done shredding the chicken, the broth should be boiling. Reduce heat to medium and sprinkle the noodles over the top, stirring to keep them separated.

Continue pulling off chunks of dough, rolling them out, separating the noodles and adding them to the simmering broth as you finish each batch. Once all the noodles are in, stir in the chicken and heat through before serving. The only broth remaining, which will not be much, will be thickened from the flour on the noodles, which is what you want, but you can add more broth if there’s not enough liquid to finish all the noodles.  The noodles will thicken even more upon standing.

*Veronica’s Note: you can add a little turmeric to give the noodles more color, not more than ¼ teaspoon.

*Disclaimer: this post contains an affiliate link and I will earn a commission if you choose to purchase the herb mincer I linked to. :)