Chicken Noodle Soup (stew??)

It is still 90+ degrees where I live, but I love soup – so, despite the heat tonight – it was a chicken noodle soup night. It started as soup – but, ended up pretty thick, so maybe it is more of a stew. Regardless – it was delicious!!

I started out with chicken, which I cooked in my instant pot (from frozen). PERFECTION! I decided to use both chicken breasts and thighs. I cooked them on the poultry setting, for 30 minutes, with 1 cup of chicken stock.

The truly brilliant thing about this chicken is how I shredded it. I’m not saying that I am brilliant (I saw this somewhere else), I’m saying that it worked brilliantly! Literally, less than a minute and 2 chicken breasts and 3 chicken thighs – perfectly shredded. How was is shredded, you ask?? With a hand mixer, in the instant pot!

From now, to the end of time, when I need shredded chicken – it will be cooked in the instant pot and shredded with a hand mixer!

I set the chicken aside and got busy getting my veggies (carrots, celery and onion) ready to go in my dutch oven. I just sliced and chopped the veggies to similar size and it was ready to go!

I added a small amount of oil in my dutch oven and cooked the veggies a little bit before I added the chicken broth. Only for maybe 5 minutes or so – just to seal in a little bit of flavor in the veggies!

Then I added my broth – brought the pot up to boil and cooked the vegetables for about 10 minutes. Next, I added in the shredded chicken, with any broth that was in the instant pot and brought it back up to a boil.

The final step was to add the noodles and allow them to cook through. For the pasta I used, that was about 8 minutes.

The only thing left was to enjoy this delicious soup!!

Chicken Noodle Soup approx time to make recipe, including prep: 1.5 hours

Shredded Chicken (see instructions below)
5-6 carrots, chopped
4-5 stalks of celery, chopped
1/2 onion, diced
8 cups of chicken broth
1 lb of pasta
1 tbsp garlic
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried thyme
salt to taste

Shredded chicken
1 cup of chicken broth
2 frozen chicken breasts
3 frozen chicken thighs
Instant pot
** Add all items to instant pot and cook on poultry setting for 30 minutes. Quick release once instant pot finishes and shred with hand mixer

• Chop vegetables
• Add oil and vegetables to large pot or dutch oven – cook for about 5 minutes.
• Add broth to pot, along with the seasonings, bring to boil and cook for 10 minutes.
• Add shredded chicken to pot and bring back up to a boil
• Add pasta and cook until pasta is done