My Chicken Noodle Sausage Soup recipe is so tasty – you may never make Chicken Noodle soup the same way again! Chicken broth is sooooo good anyway, and homemade chicken noodle has been a favorite of mine since I was young and my mom made it for me, or my grandma made it with her signature dumplings! I think if you make this for your family that they will ask for it all the time!

Here’s the ingredients you’ll need for this recipe:

• About 1.5 lbs of boneless skinless chicken
• 2 or 3 brat size links of mild sweet turkey italian sausage
• 3-4 carrots cut into round slices about 1/8″ thick
• About 1 lb wide egg noodles
• 4 stalks celery chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic freshly chopped
• 1/2 large onion chopped
• 1 can chicken broth
• 1/2 large green pepper chopped
• 4 tsp Italian Seasonings
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tsp Cumin
• 2 tsp onion powder (not salt)
• 2 tsp garlic powder (not salt)
• 1 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese

This recipe is pretty easy in my opinion. Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil in a large skillet, turn the heat on med-high and add the chicken. Fill 4 quart stockpot 3/4 full with water and place on burner on high heat to boil. I sprinkle some lemon pepper on my chicken while it cooks 5-7 minutes on the first side. Then I start chopping up the veggies and add them to the pot of boiling water, and all the seasonings as well. Then I go back to the skillet and flip my chicken over, and then take my turkey sausage and squeze it out over the chicken. Then I start to chop up the chicken roughly with my spatula – the same as you would chop up ground beef for tacos. Trust me, as the chicke starts to cook it’s not hard to break it up into bite sized pieces with the spatula.

So you’ve got all the veggies and spices in the pot of water and the chicken sausage in the skillet. Once the chicken mixture is about 80% cooked, dump the entire skillet into the water pot, and simmer with the lid off at least an hour (I prefer 90 minutes). When you serve this, liberally sprinkle the freshly grated parmesan cheese over the top and voila! one of the more tasty meals you’ll have!

If you’re looking for a Cream of Vegetable Soup Recipe, this concoction will keep you full for hours and hours!

The other day I had a full vegetable drawer in the fridge and it was time to clean it out. Maybe I’ve had one too many salads lately, because I was looking for something a bit different. As chance would have it, I also had about 2/3 of a gallon of skim milk that needed to be used up by weeks end – so I immediately thought of cooking up a creme based soup. This one turned out to be a bit unusual (and tasty) because usually my vegetable soups are tomato based. I was surprised when I served this recipe that every single family member ate every last drop (even the teens in the house!).

Like most soup recipes, you can interchange the ingredients and vegetables with what you have on hand or need to use up – this just happens to be how I made the recipe last night. Keep in mind that even though this is a creme based soup – I tried to keep it as healthy as possible. In addition – this is a great vegetarian recipe to make for a meatless main dish!

Ingredients for Creme of Vegetable Soup:

• 1/2 Vidalia Onion chopped
• 1/2 Zucchini chopped with skin
• 1/2 Green Pepper chopped
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tbsp lite margarine
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 lb chopped broccoli
• 1/2 lb chopped carrots
• 2 stalks celery chopped
• 1 small bunch cauliflower chopped
• 2/3 gallon skim milk
• 2 packets powdered cheese mix
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
• italian seasonings to taste
• 1 tsp each thyme, rosemary, and sage
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp ground Cumin

A lot of creme soups are water based with milk added, but I’ve always made my creme soups 100% milk based whenever possible. I use skim milk, so it’s healthier, and you do have to stir a 100% milk based creme soup more often while cooking – but I think it just plain tastes better.

I start this recipe off by putting chopping up the onion, green pepper, celery, and carrots and placing in a large 4 quart pot on the stove. Add the margarine and olive oil and turn the heat to med-high. What you’re going to do here is get your vegetables soft in the butter and oil for about 5-6 minutes, stirring constantly.

Next have your milk handy and your going to sprinkle the 1/2 cup flour over the mixture in the pot while stirring it in with a spoon in the other hand. Do this until the flour is used up, and what you should end up with is a veggie mixture with flour that is clumped or balled up (but mixed well). Brown this for about 60 seconds, and then add the milk little by little, mixing as you go until the entire 2/3 gallon is gone. You have now created a rue which you have turned into the base for your creme soup.

Next I add the Zucchini, Broccoli, and Cauliflower to the pot (chopped of course). I saved them until I got to this point because these are much softer vegetables that cook quickly – and there’s no point in pre-cooking them. Next I add all my seasonings, the salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and sage – in addition to italian seasonings, garlic powder, and cumin. These all seemed to blend very well together for this recipe and everyone loved the end taste.

Last but not least, I used 2 packets of powdered cheese. There are 2 reasons I do this. The first is – by not using real cheese I’m cutting out a lot of fat. In addition, this type of cheese is designed to get thick. Basically it’s the same powdered cheese mix you might see used in foodservice for pretzel cheese, or macaroni and cheese. It has a thickening agent (like cornstarch) that thickens up your creme soup even more – but it also gives it a real cheddar-cheesy taste without having to use real cheese or Velveeta (which you could do – just wait until the soup is nearly done cooking!).

Once I added all the vegetables I added just enough additional milk to bring the level within about 2″ of the top of my 4 quart pan. I did this to accomodate shrinkage (evaporation), since I cook this soup uncovered. You may or may not have to add milk to level it off at the end depending on how many vegetables you use and how much space in the pot they take up.

Bring the soup to boil on med-high and then turn the burner down to med-low, and cook for about an hour to hour and a half. While bringing to a boil, stir every 60 seconds – once you turn the burner down stir about every 5-8 minutes. This soup is best cooked in a teflon coated pan (better for cleanup too!).

When we ate this creme of vegetable soup – we dipped multi-grain rools freshly baked in the soup, I recommend you try my famous Enga Buns – Homemade Multigrain Rolls Recipe to go along with this!

You can make chicken noodle soup in about an hour, just the way you remember it when you were a kid at Grandma’s house!

A picture of our “homemade” Chicken Noodle Soup boiling on the stove tonight:

On a nice cold blustery day there’s nothing better than a big bowl of chicken noodle soup with freshly grated cheese on top! The smell permeates throughout the house, and after you eat it you’re full for the rest of the night. There’s always some leftover for the next day – and it’s a very satisfying meal. Why else would they have so many “chicken soup for the soul…” books? It may take an hour to make this, but most of that is cooking time. You can easily go and do something else while it cooks, and prep time is less than 10 minutes.

Ingredients you’ll need for “Chicken Noodle Soup”:

• 5-6 boneless skinless frozen chicken tenders or 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cans chicken broth
• 3 celery stalks
• 1/2 large vidalia onion
• 5 medium to large carrots
• 6 cups water
• 2/3 of a 16oz bag of Wide Egg Noodles
• fresh shredded mozzerella or parmesan cheese
• Italian Seasonings
• Garlic Powder
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

In a 4 qt stockpot add the 2 cans of chicken broth and 6 cups of water. Place the frozen chicken directly into the broth and put the stockpot on the stove on high. Rinse the celery and dice (I usually like to take the middle of the celery with all the leaves the “heart”), place in stock pot. Dice 1/2 large Vidalia onion and place in the pot. Peel 6 carrots, slice in half lengthwide, in half again, then slice each in 3 sections the opposite way making little carrot sticks and place in pot. Add the 2 tbsp Italian seasonings, 1tbsp garlic powder, 1tbsp salt, and 2 tbsp fresh ground pepper to the pot. Stir and leave burner on high until it boils. Once it boils turn down to medium and set your timer for about 40 minutes.

Do not cover the pot, this way the liquid “reduces” over time a bit. At the 40 minute mark check the carrots – they should be so soft that they break right apart with the edge of the spoon. If they’re ready add the noodles to the pot and stir. If not, cook about 10 more minutes and then add the noodles. The noodles only need to cook about 10-12 minutes. You’ll know they’re done with they start to rise to the top – test one and make sure it’s tender. Stir occasionally so the mixture doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

Turn the burner off when it’s done. Immediately serve up bowls of the chicken noodle soup, and shred fresh mozzerella or parmesan cheese over the top. Then serve! We usually get either a ball of authentic fresh mozzerella in the cheese section of the deli and grate fresh over the soup, or a block of fresh parmesan and grate right over the steaming soup freshly served in the bowl! This is great with big crusty croutons or day old fresh bread as well! I hope you like it as much as we did for dinner tonight!

My Cheesy Chicken Tortilla soup is so filling that you won’t need to serve anything but this dish for the entire meal. Be forewarned – if you eat more than one bowl than you may need to just ‘veg’ out the rest of the day! The ingredients are very basic, but by adding specific ingredients that you like you can customize the recipe to suit your own taste very easily.

During the week my main goal when cooking meals is to get something different and tasty – but get it cooked quick and fast. I just don’t have the time to cook a 2 or 3 hour meal – and even if I did I’m tired from work. On the weekends I usually don’t mind if I have to cook a dish for many hours – or even all day. A lot of times I’ll start a meal somewhere between 11am-2pm and let it cook all afternoon until dinner at 5pm-7pm.

Usually a dinner like this starts out when I head to the kitchen to make a snack earlier in the day on a Saturday or Sunday. Someone in the house wanted a tuna sandwich – so that’s how it all began. I went to the veggie drawer to make sure we had some celery (yes celery, I’ll give my special tuna recipe after this one) and I saw that we had to celery and carrots that should be used up. I also checked the potato bin and found we had a bag of potatoes and a few onions that were getting old. The first thing that came to mind was potato soup I got one suggestion for loaded baked potato soup. But I wanted something with chicken in it and I thought of chicken tortilla soup – and that’s when this recipe was born. The recipe may not be like many you are used to making – but I promise you if you follow my instructions you will be more than satisfied with the end result!

This is what you will need:

• About 2lb chicken breast – “chicken tenders” work best
• About 2/3 gallon of milk (fat free, 2%, D, whatever you use)
• About 2/3 cup butter (or margarine, or what you use)
• 1 large or 2 medium onions (white, yellow, or Vidalia)
• 3-4 green onions
• 1-2 stalks celery
• 1 carrot
• 8 medium to large sized potatoes (baking size)
• Peppers you like (bell pepper, mild chili, jalepeno – 1-2 of the type that suits whether you like mild, medium, or hot)
• 2/3 cup sour cream
• 1 bag torilla chips
• 1 tbsp minced garlic (if you like garlic)
• 2 tbsp Cumin, 1-2 tsp chili powder (use 1 pack taco seasoning if you don’t have this)
• salt and pepper to taste
• About 8oz of shredded colby-jack cheese and 8oz of traditional mexican melting cheese (white) or famer’s cheese

Ok, now let’s get going. You need a large pot – the big 4-6 quart one will do. This recipe serves 6 more than healthy portions, you can double it if you have a big enough pot and more people to feed. Peel your potatoes, slice them in half and then 2/3 times lengthwise, and slice the opposite way dicing them into 1/2-1″ cubes. Let your hot water run when you are dicing, and then place them in the pot and cover with the hot water about 1″ above the potatoes. Throw a dash of salt in the water and put on high on your largest burner.

Now dice your onion, put the green onion in a small bowl for later and the regular onion in a small mixing bowl. Clean and dice the stalk of celery and place it in the same bowl. Also peel and then shred (like hashbrown size) the carrot and place in same bowl. Whichever kind of pepper you are using also clean, de-vein, seed, dice, and also add to the same bowl. Remember, add however much heat (hot peppers) you are used to using when you regularly cook Southwestern food. If you don’t like spice just go with one regular bell pepper. Then place that bowl aside for later.

You are going to watch your potatoes while you chop these veggies. Leave them on high until they boil, and just before they boil over turn them down to medium high heat. Stir them every 5 minutes or so while you prepare everything else.

Next get your chicken going. If you’ve been paying attention to the last month of recipes you’ll already know that I like to keep a few bags of frozen chicken tenders in the freezer. These are boneless, skinless chicken breasts about 1/2 the size of a normal breast with virutally no fat. This means you can just place 8-10 of them in a medium sized mixing bowl and defrost in the Microwave (on the defrost cycle) in about 4 1/2 minutes. Then I place 1/4 cup of oil in a pan, pre-heat to high for 3-4 minutes, and add the chicken directly from the microwave to the pan. If you want to use fresh chicken breast, regular sized breasts, or chicken on the bone this is all fine – just realize that once it’s cooked you’ll have to chop it up on the cutting board. The advantage to using the chicken tender is that when they’re about 3/4 cooked you can just chop them up right in the pan with a spatula quickly and easily just like cooking ground beef. Season the chicken the same way you would taco meat. Also, what I do is let the chicken cook on one side for 5-6 minutes, season and turn and then dump on the the content of the bowl of chopped veggies you set aside earlier. Then when they are 3/4 cooked and you chop them up with your spatula you are mixing in and pre-cooking the onions and peppers at the same time.

Just about the time that your chicken is done your potatoes will be getting done. You know this when they start to break down a bit and the water just starts to become more cloudy. You want the potatoes done enough that when you try to break one apart with your spoon or fork it instantly splits right in half easily. If they are just falling apart or the cubes start falling apart and loosing their corners and edges you cooked them too long. You are basically just cooking them just a very short bit before where you would if you were making mashed potatoes.

If you chicken is done when the potatoes are, just turn the chicken off until you need it. drain the potatoes in a colander in the sink, rise with water, drain, and place potatoes back into the pan. Add the butter and some salt and pepper to taste. Add the milk and the sour cream, and mix everything up real good in the pot and then turn the heat back on med-high. Add your chicken and veggie mixture and mix again. Last add your spices, the cumin and chili powder, additional salt and pepper if you like (I add fresh ground pepper), I personally usually also add 2 tsp garlic powder, 2 tsp italian seasonings, and about 2 tbsp minced garlic.

You are only going to leave this on the stove on med-high heat until it begins to boil. Then you are going to turn it down to low and simmer for at least 90 minutes, but it can go as long as 2-3 hours if you like. I think the pot we use is 4 quart, and what I usually do is get everything in that pot up until the point we just ended, and then I’ll get out the milk and put in just a little more to bring the level of the soup to within 2″ of the top of the pot. That will leave me with like an 1/8th or 1/4 of the gallon left. Also one last ingredient that can put an awesome twist on this recipe is just 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro. If you have some on hand – chop it up and add it at this point!

You’re going to cook this uncovered, the goal is for the soup to “reduce” and all the ingredients will break down and meld together making this one of the tastiest soups you will ever eat. The combination of the potatoes, and the milk, and the chicken also make it very, very filling.  You want to stir this up about every 10 minutes while cooks – I just set a timer while we watched a movie in the other room and just went back and reset it every time so I didn’t forget.

I said that this had to cook for at least 90 minutes because it takes at least that long simmering to reduce about 15% and break down the veggies and potatoes and getting the flavors all mixed together. If you ate it any sooner it just wouldn’t be the same. When you are satisfied it’s done you want to add the cheese. Just dump in the shredded co-jack and stir, and I cut the mexican melting cheese into cubes, dump in and stir. Mix up real good and get it all melted. Then fill your bowls with the soup, and what I do is add a handful of shredded co-jack on top of each bowl, then the chopped green onion from earlier (a small handful) and a dollop of sour cream in the middle of each bowl. Take your tortilla chops and place a big handful over 1/2 the bowl – and serve!

You eat Cheesy Chicken Tortilla Soup with the actual tortilla chips in the bowl (like nachos), and when you dip and eat each chip in the soup you’ll find that the combination of the salted chips and the cheesy soup is delicious! When your chips run out either use a spoon or get more chips! If you like this recipe – please let me know and comment now – especially if you have a question of a variation of this that would make it even better!