Slow Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup is total comfort food. Toss some ingredients into the crockpot and let your house smell like heaven all day long!
Chicken noodle soup is a classic American comfort food. We eat it when we’re sick, when it’s stormy outside, or just when we need a pick-me-up. If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know that we are all about making things from scratch. There’s nothing quite like fresh veggies, real chunks of chicken breast, and egg noodles to satisfy in this homemade chicken noodle soup.
We do already have a popular recipe for chicken noodle soup on the stove, but we wanted to give a slow cooker version of it as well. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as knowing that your made from scratch dinner didn’t take much effort at all. Not to mention, your house will smell absolutely amazing while the chicken and vegetables cook low and slow all day long.
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Can I use other cuts of chicken in slow cooker chicken noodle soup?
Yes, other cuts of meat can be used in place of chicken breasts. You can use thighs and drumsticks, or even a whole chicken. Cooking times will remain the same. Be warned that chicken skin does not fare well in the slow cooker and the meat will need to be removed from the crockpot to remove the skin and bones and shred the meat. Some bits of fat and skin may end up in your soup.
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Noodle Options: Dry pasta, frozen, or homemade
When it comes to Chicken Noodle Soup, you have a few noodle options to choose from.
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Dry pasta is an inexpensive and convenient option and comes in several shapes. You are looking for dry wide egg noodles which can be flat and wide, or have a slight curl to them.
- Fresh homemade egg noodles are, of course, the classic option. They are less convenient than dry pasta or frozen, but they are still simple to make. You’ll need to start making them approximately 45 minutes before you’d like to be ready to eat.
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How do I prevent the noodles from getting mushy?
When using dry pasta, the noodles are added to the slow cooker about 15 minutes before serving. DO NOT let them sit longer than that in the crockpot or the noodles will start to get mushy. Another option is to cook your noodles separately on the stove and add them to the soup when ready to serve. Homemade-style egg noodles (fresh or frozen) are less likely to get mushy.
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How can I adjust the salt to make this recipe low sodium friendly?
Opt for low sodium chicken broth to give you better control over seasoning. You can then add salt to suit your own personal taste preferences and needs.
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Freezer Instructions:
Chicken Noodle Soup is great for freezing. You can make a large batch and freeze the leftovers. Let the soup cool down before freezing. We prefer to ladle ours into a gallon-sized resealable plastic freezer bag for freezing because it can lay flat. This is not only convenient for fitting into the freezer, but it also helps the soup thaw faster for reheating and serving. We simply break it up and add it to a saucepan or pot to reheat over a medium-low heat. Because the noodles can get mushy, we prefer to use frozen homemade-style egg noodles which hold up better.
If you like this recipe, you may be interested in these other delicious soup recipes:
I find the Instant Pot to be incredibly reliable. 1 hour on high and add the cooked noodles before serving.
Keep it up, ladies. I love your recipes!!
This soup is almost 5 stars, but it is lacking flavor. We added 3 teaspoons of chicken bouillon and cooked the noodles separate and added them in. If you do these two things, it’s 5 stars!!
This ended up tasting bitter. I couldn’t figure out why until I realized that instead of using dried thyme and dried oregano as the recipe clearly stated, I used GROUND thyme and GROUND oregano. So, entirely my fault. FYI 1 heaping cup of tiny star pasta was just right. Not mushy at all.
I ended up adding 3/4 tsp ground cumin. It was ok once I experimented with adding different types of vinegar (rice, balsamic, malt) to my bowl for each meal. I’ll end up eating it myself since I have picky family members, but lesson learned.
The soup was good and easy to make. Next time I will leave out the ginger though, didn’t like the flavor in my soup.
Yes, I cook my noodles or rice separately so the soup stays as soup and not thick and starchy. Then anyone can pick which pasta they like.
This was a complete disaster. Next time I will cook the noodles before I put them in a crock pot. Boiling water is 212 degrees. Everybody’s crock pots are different temperatures, and noodles are different. I will cook the noodles in boiling water and ensure they are cooked before putting them in the crock pot. I had to cook the noodles way more than 15 minutes. Since the noodles were not cooked in water that was dumped, the soup was extremely starchy. My wife would not eat the soup.
Delicious! I would use more broth, next time, as the noodles absorbed a lot of the broth. A big hit in the family. Again, delicious.
Yummy