The Cheater’s Guide to Homemade Chicken and Noodles

step one:
~Head out to your favorite grocery store

step two:
~Buy one of their regular rotisserie chickens (not the BBQ one, pick out a nice big, juicy one!) – $4.99-5.99
This is MUCH cheaper than buying your own raw chicken only to have to take it home and roast it for 2 hours yourself…trust me.

~get one package (12 oz.) Amish Kitchens Extra Thick Kluski Egg Noodles (don’t get the thin ones, they will mush up into well…mush!) DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT get regular egg noodles…they will not work, they will get mushy and icky, get the Amish noodles for authentic homemade taste. – under $2

~couple carrots, onion, garlic cloves and some celery – about $2.00 at the most.

step three:
~grab a Snickers bar in the check-out line, pay for stuff…go home. – $.50

step four:

~pull meat off the chicken into a container and place in frig for later.

~In large pot, put all bones and skin of carcass and about 3 quarts of water, turn on med-high.

~chop onion, carrots, a large clove of garlic, celery – add to pot.

~Add minimal salt and pepper to taste. (the chicken is salted, so I wait til the end of the cook to add to taste.)

~bring to boil, turn down heat to low heat, cover and simmer for one hour.

~eat Snickers while shopping on Etsy.

step five:

~once your rich stock has been made, with slotted spoon, remove skin and bones and throw them away.

~add your whole bag of noodles and let them cook in a slow rolling boil till tender. (about 10 minutes)

~add the chicken meat back in.

~The noodles will soak up most of the broth once they cook up, leaving you with a very thick chicken and noodle mixture.

Its not really soup at this point, but that’s how my family likes it.

You can thin it down a bit with some water if it’s too thick for your liking, but it’s really up to you!

Taste and add salt and more pepper to your liking.

Serve with mashed taters and yeast rolls if you like….this tastes really close to homemade!

Enjoy! For about $10, you can feed a good 6-8 ppl… especially if you stretch it out with the potatoes (also an inexpensive option).