Truly, winter is the domain of Chicken Soup. Although good any time of year, there really is nothing better on a cold miserable day than a bowl of hot, healthy chicken soup. Anyone who has cooked for pleasure for even a small amount of time has eventually made their way to this concoction.

My recipe is many years in the making and surely it will be different in a few more years. This recipe grows and changes as you do.

Here is my current recipe that I use to make about six quarts of soup:

• 5-6 chicken thighs.
• 1 large onion (any kind), chopped.
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced.
• 4-5 stalks of celery, cleaned, leaves removed, and chopped.
• 2 cups of baby carrots, chopped.
• 1 15 ounce can of sweet kernel corn, drained.
• Assorted pasta (bow tie, noodles, egg noodles, macaroni, etc.) about three large handfuls.
• 3 stalks (sprigs) of thyme.
• 3 stalks (sprigs) of sage.
• 2 large bay leaves.
• water.
• kosher salt& fresh pepper.

Place the chopped onion on the bottom of your Crockpot. Add the carrots, celery, and then the garlic next. Place two of chicken thighs on top of the vegetables. We are not going to cook all the chicken in the Crockpot. This would create a very fatty soup. Although chicken soup needs some fat, you do not need quite that much and chicken thighs are very fatty.

Cover everything with the corn (make sure you drained it). Sprinkle with fresh ground pepper and salt. Go easy on these. You can always add more salt later to taste, but you cannot take it out. I would recommend maybe 7-8 turns of your pepper grinder and about a teaspoon of salt.

Add water until there is about 2-3 inches of room left from the top of the Crockpot (you need to be able to add more meat and pasta later).

Tie the sprigs of thyme and sage together and drop them in the water and dunk them down. You want to be able to remove this later so tying them makes it easier. Add the bay leaves.

Turn Crockpot on low and cover. Let cook for about 8 – 10 hours. Cook the remaining chicken in the oven. Just spice with salt and pepper and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

Remove the chicken from the Crockpot when the oven cooked chicken is done. Remove the skin and discard (however you want 🙂 ). Remove the tied thyme and sage and discard. Let the chicken cool.

While you are waiting:

Taste the soup and determine if it needs any more salt and pepper and add it in small amounts until satisfied. Myself, I do not add much salt until I put it into my bowl. Not everyone likes the same amount of salt as you do. 🙂

Turn the Crockpot on high and add the pasta. You can use any pasta, but I usually mix it up with 2-3 different kinds including but not limited to macaroni, egg noodles, bow tie pasta, oriental noodles, etc.. I never measure this, but usually about three handfuls. If using macaroni, use small handfuls as a little goes a long way. The pasta should be completely submerged, so don’t add more then what can be covered by the liquid.

Remove the meat from the chicken thighs and cut into small bite size pieces and add back to the Crockpot. Within about 10-20 minutes the pasta should be done and you can turn the heat on the Crockpot off (or on warm to use throughout the day).

If the soup gets a bit dry, add warm water as needed.