Whole Chicken Noodle Soup

Jess called me on Tuesday. Not texted — called. Jess doesn't call. Jess texts single words at odd hours like a submarine sending sonar pings, just enough to confirm she's still down there. So when my phone rang at eleven at night and her name was on the screen, I sat up in bed so fast Lauren thought something was wrong. Something was wrong, but not the kind Lauren could help with.

\n\n

Jess was crying. Not the performative crying she does when she wants something — I know the difference, I've known the difference since we were twelve — but the real kind, the kind that's mostly breathing with sound leaking out. She said she was tired. She said she wanted to stop. I said, "Stop what?" and she said, "Everything," and I couldn't tell if she meant the drugs or something worse, and the ten seconds I spent not knowing were the longest ten seconds of my life. She meant the drugs. She said she'd been clean for three days and she felt like she was dying and she wanted to hear my voice. I talked to her for two hours. I told her about my practicum kids, about Mrs. Delgado, about the chili I made last week. I talked about nothing because nothing was all I had and she needed it.

\n\n

I drove home Saturday. Jess was on her mom's couch, wrapped in a blanket, looking like something that had been through the wash too many times. I made chicken noodle soup — the real kind, not from a can. A whole chicken from Aldi for $4.89, carrots, celery, egg noodles, salt. You simmer the chicken in water with the vegetables until the meat falls off the bone, then you shred it, add the noodles, and you have soup that costs six dollars and heals things that medicine can't. That's not true. Medicine can do things soup can't. But soup can do things that sitting and worrying can't, and I needed to do something with my hands besides wring them.

\n\n

Jess ate a bowl. Then another. Mrs. Papalardo stood in the kitchen doorway watching her daughter eat and looking at me like I'd performed a miracle. I hadn't. I'd made soup. There's a difference, even though some days they feel like the same thing.

\n\n

I went to Babcia Rose's on my way back to DeKalb. She was watching Wheel of Fortune with Dziadek Wally, who was asleep in his recliner. She gave me a container of pierogi and said, "You look tired." I am tired. I'm twenty-one years old and I'm tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep.

There’s something about being twenty-one and exhausted and still needing to feed people that makes you reach for the simplest, most honest thing you know how to make—and for me, that’s always been this soup. I’ve made it so many times I don’t really think while I’m making it, which is exactly what I needed that day. Here’s how it goes.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 whole chicken (3–4 lbs), giblets removed
3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 medium yellow onion, quartered
3 cloves garlic, smashed
10 cups cold water
2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 bay leaves
2 cups (about 4 oz) wide egg noodles, dry
Fresh parsley, chopped, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Build the broth. Place the whole chicken in a large stockpot or Dutch oven. Add the onion, garlic, 1 carrot (broken in half), 1 stalk of celery, bay leaves, salt, pepper, and thyme. Cover with 10 cups of cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a low simmer. Skim any foam from the surface during the first 10 minutes.
Simmer low and slow. Cover partially and cook on low for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the meat is pulling away from the bone. The broth will turn golden.
Pull the chicken. Carefully transfer the whole chicken to a cutting board or large bowl and let it cool for 10 minutes. Remove and discard the onion, garlic, celery, carrot halves, and bay leaves from the broth. Return the broth to a gentle simmer.
Add the vegetables. Add the remaining sliced carrots and celery to the simmering broth. Cook for 10 minutes, until just tender.
Shred the chicken. While the vegetables cook, pull all the meat from the chicken carcass using two forks or your hands. Discard the skin and bones. Tear the meat into rough, generous shreds — dark and white meat both.
Add noodles and chicken. Add the egg noodles and shredded chicken to the pot. Cook for 7–9 minutes, until the noodles are tender. Taste and adjust salt.
Serve. Ladle into bowls. Top with fresh parsley if you have it. Eat while it’s hot. Let someone eat a second bowl.

Nutrition (per serving)

Whole Chicken Noodle Soup — The Six-Dollar Bowl I Made for Jess When I Didn’t Know What Else to Do