Rounding out More Cluck for Your Buck with soup made from your chicken bones.

The weather can’t make up its mind.

One day it is brilliantly gorgeous, with the sun piercing through our protective lenses and making everyone yearn to be a cat lounging in the warmth. The next day ice has travelled through, killing our burgeoning tomato plants, and along with it, our hopes for an early spring.

Living in Texas, we generally only get to complain about the weather when it’s 110 for the fifteenth day in a row, but this winter has given us the opportunity to get in on the action the rest of the country gets. Although, I know, for all my complaints, we still have it pretty darn good.

However, the whiplash-inducing temperature shifts have made dinner planning kind of odd. The days you plan a hearty, warming slow cooker meal turn out to be warm, and the fresh spring salad is eaten when there are threats of school delays in the morning. We can’t really win. But thankfully, we have good food to turn to no matter the weather.

We love soup around here. It’s simple, filling, and a great way to provide for plenty of leftovers. This soup, made from the carcass we saved from our roast chicken, is rounded out with the holy trinity of vegetables (carrots, onions, and celery) and alphabet noodles thrown in for fun.

Adding the alphabet noodles instead of rotini or macaroni is such a small tweak to a recipe, but it’s something that immediately put a smile on everyone’s face at the table as we all attempted to spell words with our noodle letters.

Chicken Soup - We wrap up More Cluck for Your Buck with a use for those saved chicken bones - easy chicken soup with alphabet noodles.

This made a lot of soup, but you can simmer the stock down as long as you want to create a more rich recipe. Throw in any extra chicken meat you might have left from the earlier roast, or try adding some shredded greens to make it interesting!

Homemade Alphabet Chicken Soup

Name: Homemade Alphabet Chicken Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 4 h
Total time: 4 h 15 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 1 chicken carcass, preferably with some meat still on; 2 tablespoons salt; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 cup diced carrot; 1/2 cup diced celery; 1/2 cup diced onion; 1 teaspoon oregano; 1 teaspoon thyme; 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper; 1-2 cups dried alphabet noodles

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 4 hours

Total Time: 4 hours 15 minutes

Warm up with a bowl of classic family-friendly chicken noodle!

Ingredients

1 chicken carcass, preferably with some meat still on
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup diced carrot
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced onion
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1-2 cups dried alphabet noodles

Instructions

Put chicken in a large stockpot and cover completely with water. Add salt, then bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to a medium simmer and let simmer for at least 2 hours, until chicken is falling apart.
Place a colander over a large bowl and strain stock and chicken into it.
In the now-empty stock pot, melt butter over medium heat. Once melted, add carrot, celery, and onion, and cook until onion is translucent. Pour back in stock and bring to a simmer.
Pick apart chicken and remove any meat that is left, and add the meat to the soup. Stir in spices, then bring soup to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and let cook for at least an hour. 15 minutes before serving time, add noodles.
Taste soup and adjust seasoning as needed.