Meet Your New Favorite Homemade Chicken Soup Recipe!
Here’s the deal: there is absolutely nothing that makes me more giddy and excited than sharing a really, really cozy and comforting, makes-your-house-smell-like-heaven, soup recipe.
The only thing that makes it better is when said recipe also just so happens to be the easiest (borderline laziest), put-it-in-the-oven-and-forget-about-it-for-a-few-hours type of recipe.
The combination of low effort and high reward is absolute my favorite when it comes to the kitchen. So that’s exactly what we’re doing today. The coziest, laziest Homemade Chicken Soup is here…
Whole chicken is first browned to create a base of flavor then slowly roasts in an intensely flavored broth with onions, garlic, and fresh herbs.
It’s the simplest one-pot operation and results in the extra rich and flavorful soup with fall-off-the-bone tender chicken. Add some egg noodles and crusty bread on the side, and you’ve got the most perfectly cozy fall meal.
Good-for-the-soul – classic, cozy goodness.
All the Recipes You Need for Soup Season!
14 warm and cozy recipes for soup lovers (plus bonus soup sides!)
Key Ingredients
From its simple ingredients list to its straightforward preparation, this whole chicken soup is seriously easy to throw together, but you’d never guess it based on its deeply rich flavors.
You will need…
- Whole chicken – You’ll need a 3-4 pound whole chicken for this roasted chicken noodle soup recipe. Since it’s the primary ingredient in this homemade chicken soup, be sure to buy the highest quality chicken you can find.
- Mirepoix – the classic combination of celery, carrots and onion. I prefer a mirepoix made with lots of carrots and very little celery – you can adjust the recipe accordingly to suit your tastes.
- Aromatics – namely a whole head of garlic, whole peppercorn, bay leaves, and fresh herbs like rosemary, sage, and thyme.
- Lemon – A secret ingredient that adds much-needed acidity to offset the richness of this whole roasted chicken noodle soup. A little bit of fresh lemon adds the perfect zippiness to rich, brothy soups without making them overly lemony.
- Chicken broth – While most scratch-made chicken soup recipes will use water, I think it’s silly not to opt for an ingredient with built-in flavor, such as broth or stock.
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Buy Now → How to Make Whole Chicken Soup From Scratch
If you’ve never learned how to make roasted chicken soup with whole chicken, you are in for such a treat today! There’s no better smell than the aroma of a slowly simmered soup bubbling away in your kitchen, and there’s nothing more satisfying than diving into a big, cozy bowl of homemade soup.
A major bonus? This homemade chicken soup recipe is so easy to throw together.
While it’s not traditional to brown the bird when making chicken soup with whole chicken, I really grew fond of doing so as I tested this recipe. Why? ⇢ Browning promotes crispiness. There is nothing better than crispy roasted chicken skin, which you don’t normally get with traditional homemade chicken soup. It also helps “lock” in all of the chicken juice, preventing it from drying out as it cooks. Lastly, as the chicken browns, it leaves browned bits on the bottom of the pot, which helps create an even more intensely flavored chicken stock for the soup.
With the chicken browned, you’ll add in the rest of the soup ingredients: poultry herbs, thinly sliced onion, garlic, lemon, bay leaves, and whole peppercorns. Pour the chicken broth into the pot, and your soup is ready to roast!
Put the soup pot directly in the oven and roast for 90 minutes to 2 hours, until the chicken is cooked through. The skin on top of the chicken will be super crisp and the broth will have an intensely golden hue. Plus, your kitchen will smell like absolute HEAVEN.
Remove the chicken from the soup. It’ll be fall-apart tender and so easy to shred into perfectly bite-sized chunks. Strain the broth to remove the spent aromatics. Return the soup to the stove with some fresh veggies, and let it simmer until they’re tender. Add the shredded chicken to the pot and serve immediately!
Serving and Storing Noodle-y Soups
It wouldn’t be homemade chicken soup without adding some noodles into the mix! To add noodles to your whole chicken soup, simply boil the pasta separately as you finish simmering the soup. Once cooked, drain it off and spoon the pasta directly into your soup bowls for serving.
Important Tip! ⇢ Whatever you do, do not dump the warm noodles directly into the soup pot. When left in a broth or stock, pasta will soak up liquid like crazy. This means your noodles will be soggy when you re-serve the soup AND the overall ratio of liquid in your soup will be wonky. Doubly no good!
Storage and Freezing
To store, transfer leftover whole chicken soup to an airtight container and pop the cooked noodles in a separate airtight container. Store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Check the Recipe Notes, below, to learn more!
Make this Slow Roasted Whole Chicken Soup next time you’re in need of a cozy and comforting home-cooked meal. It’s so simple to throw together on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and it feels like the most special meal.
If you do give it a try, be sure to let me know! Leave a comment with a star rating below. You can also snap a photo and tag @playswellwithbutter on Instagram. We LOVE seeing your PWWB creations! Happy cooking! ♡
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Mega Cozy, Slow Roasted Whole Chicken Soup
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Yield: 4-6 1x
- Category: Soup, Stew & Chili Recipes, Main Dishes
- Method: Stovetop, Oven Roasted
- Cuisine: American
Description
Kick off soup season with this Slow Roasted Whole Chicken Soup recipe! Brown whole chicken then slowly roast in an intensely aromatic broth infused with onions, garlic, and fresh herbs, until it’s fall-off-the-bone tender. Serve the roasted chicken noodle soup with egg noodles and crusty bread for the perfect comfort food meal. This is the coziest and easiest homemade chicken soup recipe you’ll ever make!
Ingredients
for the roasted chicken:
- one (1) 4-5 lb whole chicken, giblets removed
- kosher salt and ground black pepper, to season
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- one (1) 0.75-ounce pack “poultry blend” fresh herbs (or approx. 2 sprigs fresh rosemary, 2 sprigs fresh sage, and 10–12 sprigs fresh thyme)
- 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 1 head garlic, halved crosswise
- 1 lemon, cut into quarters
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
- 64 ounces chicken broth
to finish the soup:
- 8 ounces egg noodles
- 2–3 medium carrots, finely diced
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 1 medium stalk celery, finely diced
- kosher salt and ground black pepper, to season
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F, ensuring a rack is positioned in the center of the oven.
- Prepare the chicken: Remove the chicken from its packaging. Using paper towels, pat the surface of the chicken as dry as possible. Season the entire chicken, including its cavity, liberally with 1 tablespoon kosher salt and ground black pepper as desired. Optional: Using kitchen twine, tie the chicken’s legs together, securing them tightly against the breasts.
- Brown the chicken: Add the olive oil to a large (5-quart), heavy-bottomed, oven-safe Dutch oven or pot over medium-high heat. Once shimmering, carefully place the chicken in the pot, breast side down. Brown 3-4 minutes. Using tongs, carefully flip the chicken, continuing to brown 3-4 minutes per side. Once browned, position the chicken in the center of the pot, breast side up.
- Build the soup: Tie the poultry herbs together using kitchen twine for easy removal (or finely chop if you do not have twine), then add them to the pot along with the thinly sliced onion, garlic, lemon, bay leaves, and whole peppercorns, arranging everything around the chicken. Pour the chicken broth into the pot, taking care to avoid pouring directly over the top of the chicken (which causes the crispy browned skin to get totally soggy!).
- Roast: Transfer the pot to the oven and roast on the center-rack, uncovered, for 1 ½ – 2 hours, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the breast registers an internal temperature of 165 degrees F. Carefully remove the pot from the oven.
- Strain: Carefully remove the chicken from the pot, setting aside on a plate or cutting board – the chicken will be fall-apart tender, so just be careful! Strain the chicken stock through a fine-mesh strainer into a heat-safe mixing bowl or a second pot. Transfer the strained broth back into the pot or Dutch oven the chicken roasted in. Set aside.
- Finish the soup:
- Boil the egg noodles: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add in the egg noodles. Cook, stirring occasionally, according to package directions, 6-8 minutes. Strain and set aside.
- Cook the veggies: Meanwhile, cook the soup veggies. Add the carrots, onion and celery to the pot with the roasted chicken stock. Bring to a boil and cook 10-15 minutes, until the veggies have softened.
- Shred the chicken: Meanwhile, as the veggies cook and the noodles boil, shred the chicken. Remove the chicken meat from the carcass and pull into bite-sized pieces, as chunky or as fine as you’d like. Add the shredded chicken to the soup pot, stirring to combine. Cook 1-2 minutes, until reheated. Taste and season with additional salt and ground black pepper, as desired.
- Serve. Add a handful of the cooked egg noodles to a soup bowl. Ladle the chicken soup over top. Serve immediately, with a slice of buttered crusty bread, as desired. Enjoy!
Notes
- Storage: Homemade chicken soup will keep, stored in the refrigerator, for up to 4 days. Transfer cooled chicken soup to an airtight container. If you made egg noodles for your soup, store it in a separate airtight container. It’s so important to store the noodles separately – if left in broth or stock for a long period of time, they will absorb liquid like crazy, which not only makes the pasta soggy when you reheat it, but also messes with the overall ratio of liquid in your soup. Reheat in the microwave or on the stovetop.
- Freezing: Transfer cooled homemade chicken soup to a freezer-safe container and freeze for up to 3 months. Same concept for storing pasta separately applies for freezing – I’d actually suggest boiling pasta fresh when you reserve the soup. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Reheat your soup in the microwave or on the stovetop.
- 15-minute meal prep: All of the prep work involved in this recipe is chopping veggies. Chop them all in advance, storing in individual airtight containers in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. When you’re ready to prep your soup, all you have to do is get cooking – seriously so easy!:
- Thinly slice 1 medium yellow onion
- Dice 1 medium yellow onion
- Finely dice 1 stalk celery
- Dice 2-3 medium carrots (peel as desired)
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Okay, I thought I made a dang good chicken soup, but this is next level DELICIOUS!! Thank you! I’ll never make it the way I used to again.
I made a few changes to simplify and use what I had in the house:
Juiced the lemon directly into the broth rather than putting in with rind.
Used dry herbs and ground pepper, so no straining was necessary.
Added half the carrots and celery during the roasting to meld into the broth more intensely.
Used pre-minced garlic rather than fresh.
I’m sure with the fresh herbs and garlic it’s even better, but I can say without hesitation that this was the best chicken soup I’ve had in my life. Thanks for the recipe!
Wow, thank you so much for all the kind words, Naomi!! So thrilled that you loved the chicken soup as much as we do 🙂
I love the idea to brown the chicken and roast in the broth! The chicken turned out amazing, but my broth ended up being bitter. I think next time I will lower the oven temp to 375-400 because mine was cooked before 1.5 hrs and had reached a bubbling boil – I think you’re looking for a slow simmer. I might cut out one bay leaf as well, though it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep it at 3 if the temp was lower. Thanks for this idea, looking forward to trying it again with slight adjustments for my oven.
Hi Michelle, so sorry to hear that your broth turned out bitter! We would definitely recommend a lower simmer, and you can of course adjust the amount of bay leaves you’d like, as well! Hope it turns out better for you next time!
I have made this soup several times and am still surprised each time with the depth of flavor! The little extra efforts to brown the chicken and create that broth is beyond worth it. YUM!!
Thank you, Ellie! We couldn’t agree more – all the flavor from the whole chicken just gets built right into the soup. SO GOOD!
Lid on or off in oven?
Hi Tim! Thanks for the question, the soup should be uncovered (lid off) when roasting in the oven. We’ve updated the recipe card directions to reflect this as well!
Followed this recipe last week & it’s in the oven again now. It’s perfect as written, thank you so much! On it my favorite things was being able to shred the thighs & legs for the soup and still have the breasts to eat the next few days.
Hi Emily! Love to hear it, this is the perfect time of year to have Slow Roasted Whole Chicken Soup on repeat & that’s awesome you’re able to use the chicken breasts for meal prep! 💜
So incredibly good – not much extra effort & a whole new depth of flavor. So glad I found this – thanks!!
Love to hear it, Nicole! Thanks for leaving a comment!
I was super nervous about roasting a whole chicken for the first time, but these instructions were so easy to follow! The result was aMaZiNg. The smell, the flavor, the plating-all perfect.
Hey Cameron! We’re so glad the instructions were helpful & that you enjoyed this soup!! Now that you’ve done it once you’ll be a whole roasted chicken pro!
This recipe was so delicious and so easy. It’s the first time I’ve made a chicken soup I like. Plays Well With Better recipes rock! Perfect for a fall dinner. Next time I’ll freeze some for when one of us has a cold, this is my kind of delicious medicine. 😋
Hi Theresa! Definitely a good one to make extras of & save for later – we are so glad to hear that you loved it!
I have made whole chicken soup for my favorite homemade chicken noodle soup…..,BUT…your slow ROASTED whole chicken method is better! richer! robust…man oh man….will never make it any other way again. Try this! And hands off roasting!!!!
This soup was so easy, delicious, and made my house smell incredible! I absolutely loved the way the chicken was cooking in this recipe, I think it’s a great base, and will use the method in the future anytime I want to make rich broth. 10/10 recommend!
Hi Andrea! We couldn’t agree more! The whole chicken makes such a rich broth (& in such an easy way!). We are so glad you enjoyed, thank you so much for your kind words & for sharing!!
Seriously a crowd pleaser. I never thought of roasting chicken for soup but I really appreciated the level of flavor and texture it added! Definitely keeping this recipe on hand for the winter months.
Hi Maria! Thank you so much for sharing! Roasting the whole chicken totally provides another level of flavor & we are so glad you loved it!
So good!! My husband said it was the best chicken noodle soup he’s ever had!
Hi Rachel! We couldn’t agree more – so so glad you both enjoyed!! ☺️ 💜
This soup is so delicious and making it is so easy and passive! Hard to not eat it right out of the pot!
Haha we totally agree! Plus, it makes your house smell like heaven! Thank you for sharing Andrea – so glad to hear that you enjoyed!
This was so easy and absolutely delicious. I used chicken bullion instead of readymade broth since it was in my cupboards. My kids were so excited about this soup that they asked I make it tomorrow again!