Week 9 of the 2020 Chicken Challenge: Mostly Homemade Chicken Soup in the Instant Pot

Mostly Homemade Chicken Soup.....sooooo good!

So the hubs was still battling with a bad cold earlier this week, no appetite and couldn't taste much of anything.    Obviously, it's just not a good week to try a new recipe ~ real life always seems to happen when I do these challenges, so I just roll with it.    He's starting to feel better though, so we should be back to something a little more unique on the menu next week.

I'm also having problems with Blogger this week - it really isn't letting me move the photos around where I want them to be in the post.   I tried a couple different ways, but I give up - maybe next week it'll behave better.

I opted to do an old recipe - my classic chicken noodle soup - but tweak it for the Instant Pot.    I have to admit, using an IP is fast becoming my favorite way to make soups  - it's definitely all I will use now to make stocks.  Instead of having to simmer it for hours, you can just run it on the pressure cook function for an hour or so for chicken bones (2-3 hours for beef bones, depending on what recipe you're following).   

I had the leftovers from the Herb Roasted Chicken I made last weekend, which is a great soup starter.  

Full confession:  I don't think I've ever made stock completely from scratch outside of a culinary class  (I do have plans to do that later this year as part of the Chicken Challenge - and today is not that day).    I do, however, like to combine store bought stock with bones and other seasonings to make a rich soup base, which is what I did here.   I picked all the meat off the chicken and set that aside, and put the remains into the Instant Pot.

In addition to the chicken carcass, I also added a couple carrots, a couple ribs of celery, an onion cut in half with the skin (the onion skin adds color to the stock), about 10 peppercorns, 2 bay leaves, and the stems off a bunch of fresh parsley.   In addition to the box of stock, I also added about 6 cups of water, which brought the liquid to just under the "max fill" line on my 6 quart IP.    Put the lid on, chose the pressure cook option, put the timer on for 45 minutes.   

Once the pressure cook cycle was done, I left it to natural release for about 20 minutes, at which point the pin still hadn't dropped, so I released the pressure.    When you're dealing with that much liquid, it takes a long time to come to pressure and it takes a long time to fully natural release.    

Strained stock

I strained off the liquid into a big mixing bowl and threw away all the solids - nothing more to try to use them for.    I tasted the stock and it was actually very flavorful, but desperately needed salt, which is exactly where I wanted it to be.    I will sometimes bring the stock to a boil and cook it down if I think the flavor isn't strong enough, but it was richly chicken-y at this point and I also had some other additions I was going to make to it that would bump up the flavor.

While the stock was doing it's thing, I cut up the veg that I wanted for the soup -  4 carrots, peeled and sliced;  4 ribs of celery, finely sliced, and about 5 diced shallots.    I really prefer to use leeks or shallots in chicken soup - the flavor is milder than onion and really wonderful.   I had the chicken meat set to one side with some fresh chopped parsley and also the leaves off the celery.   I love using celery leaves as an herb - they have a slightly bitter, grassy taste that's really lovely in a soup.   If I didn't have the fresh herbs, some dried thyme, sage, rosemary, parsley would have all been welcome in this.

I gave the IP pot a quick wash, then got it started with the saute function.   I put a little olive oil in the pan, then added the carrot/celery/shallot and sautéed that for a few minutes until the veggies softened up a little bit.    I poured the strained stock back into the pot.  

At this point, I knew the stock needed salt and I wanted to build the flavors a little more, so I pulled out some Better Than Bouillon, which is basically a bouillon paste.   I really like BtB products but they do tend to be salty to my tastes.   The saltiness is at a level that you can work with, but you have to be aware of it  - so I used no salt added boxed stock when I made the base stock, and I buy the low salt BtB when possibly (I think they just make chicken and beef in low salt), and if I know I'm going to use some of this bouillon in a recipe, I avoid adding extra salt until I taste the final product.    What's nice about them is that when you have a dish that needs a little extra salt, you can add a bit of this and it adds flavor as well as salt.     I added about a 2 teaspoons each Low Salt Roasted Chicken and Roasted Garlic to the pot.

I got the lid back on the IP and then ran the pressure cook cycle for 6 minutes.   It didn't need long - it just needed to cook the veg through and also blend in the Better Than Bouillon into the stock.    If I was going to use raw chicken here instead of using the leftover cooked chicken, I would added maybe a pound of boneless chicken and run the pressure cycle for 10 minutes, which is enough to cook the chicken so it's tender enough to shred easily.

I let it natural release for about another 20 minutes, then released the pressure.   Once the pin dropped and I took the lid off, I mixed in the leftover roast chicken, celery leaves, and parsley and let sit together just to warm the chicken through.

For the noodle component, I cooked fine egg noodles separately - I don't like how they bulk up and basically turn the soup to sludge, so I prefer to cook them on the side and just add them to the soup bowl, then ladle the soup on top.    The fine egg noodles will warm up quickly, so it's a really easy way to control how many noodles you want to add.

We didn't eat our way through an entire 6 quart pot of soup (surprisingly!), but if you're going to make soup - make enough to freeze so next time you want some, it's ready to go.    

I split the rest of the soup base into two glass containers with about 4 cups in each, each of which will make a generous meal for the two of us.    I like to freeze in these containers overnight, then I run some hot tap water on the bottom and use a butter knife to pop out the "puck" of soup.

I then vac seal that puck, and it's good to go hang out in my freezer for up to 6 months.   Next time someone gets a cold (or we just want chicken soup), it'll be there.

Overall Rating:  10 out of 10.   Comfort food at it's best, and my favorite soup. 

Ease of Preparation:   7 out of 10.     While not difficult, it does take some time to make the stock - the Instant Pot makes it a lot easier, but it isn't "instant".    However, the results are well worth the effort.

Will It Freezer Meal?   Absolutely.   You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't make extra and freeze this.   I prefer to freeze without the noodles in the soup, but you can if you like.