Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup with Escarole, gluten free

Chicken soup is not just for the soul! There is evidence to suggest that it can help everything from the common cold, relieving congestion and inflammation, boosting your immune system, improving joint pain and even helps heal your intestines. This is great news for a Celiac! However,  the real benefits come from the bone broth.  Many of the store bought broths are not even made with bones and may include MSG, even the organic ones! I will still use it in a pinch, but I try to stick to the Pacific bone broth brand.  

I have been home sick for six days now! Bronchitis, Asthma and a whole lot of other stuff.  So I decided to make some real homemade broth.  Real bone broth should be slow cooked for 6 hours but I wasn't that ambitious so I went with my pressure cooker.  When I was younger my grandma used to go to the Vivero to get our chickens.  This is a live Poultry Hatcheries and it was a scary place to go if you're a kid.  I didn't understand why she wouldn't just buy the chicken in the supermarket but I understand now that she wanted to get organic meat.  Anyway,  there are no hatcheries near me but I did learn of a few that I can visit in the future.  For now, I just went with an organic whole chicken and had the butcher cut it up for me.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.  It makes a lot so you have plenty of leftovers.  If you don't want to do this two step process just use the Pacific bone brand.  This extra work was soooo worth it though, just saying! 😋😋

Step 1:

Chicken Bone Broth

5.5 pd whole cut up organic chicken
8 cups of water
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 large onion
4 garlic cloves, sliced in half
1 tsp salt
2 tsp whole peppercorns
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 branch of Rosemary
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 cup parsley
1/4 cup scallions, white part
2 bay leaves

made 13 cups but I spilled one so I had 12

I cut out as much fat and skin as possible and I don't use the wings.  Add the chicken, and the rest of the ingredients.  After the 2 hours in the pressure cooker release the steam, open and remove the chicken onto a plate, let cool.

Line a colander with a cheese cloth and place over a bowl for the soup., when the soup is cool pour into the colander to remove all of the other ingredients and get a clear broth. discard those veggies. Your broth is ready.
 
Remove the meat from the bones of the cooled chicken.  I don't like to see too much dark meat in my soup so I discard the pieces that are too dark. I removed almost 1.5 pounds of chicken. Now the fun part!

Step 2:

Chicken Soup  

• 2 tsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup diced ham
• 12 cups of chicken broth
• 12 oz shredded chicken (from above)
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 oz rice noodles
• 5 oz escarole, chopped
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

In a large pot, saute the onions and garlic for 2-3 min, add the ham and saute 1 more minute then add the broth, the shredded chicken and the rest of the ingredients except for the escarole and parmesan cheese.  Cook for about 15min., add the noodles and cook another 7 min. or until noodles are cooked, add the chopped escarole for the last minute. top with Parmesan cheese.

Yields: 12 Cups, Serving size: 2 Cups,  Smart points: 8, Calories: 294.3,  Total Fat: 7.7g,  Saturated Fat:  2.1,  Cholesterol: 52.2mg,  Sodium: 1227mg,  Fiber: 2.1,  Sugar: 8.6g,  Protein: 27.2g