My chicken and noodles recipe with egg noodles is an easy and delicious way to make an old-fashioned southern favorite. By starting with homemade chicken stock and adding evaporated milk, you can make a thick and creamy broth without cream of chicken soup, reducing the calorie count significantly. If you want to learn how to make boiled chicken and noodles with egg noodles on the stove, keep reading!

What’s the Difference Between Chicken Noodle Soup and Chicken and Noodles?

Chicken noodle soup and chicken and noodles have almost all of the same ingredients: chunks of chicken, vegetables, and a flavorful broth. Although the base recipes for these two dishes are almost identical, the difference is that chicken and noodles recipes call for some sort of dairy product to make the broth rich and creamy.

As explained on the AccordingToUs blog, the difference is that chicken and noodles has a thick, creamy broth usually made by adding canned soup. Some other recipes on the Internet call for adding cream cheese or sour cream, giving the dish not only a creamy texture but also a bit of tang.

Healthy Chicken and Noodles: No Canned Soup

Chicken noodle soup is a classic I remember from my childhood (usually it came from a can, but that’s OK, haha), so since it’s so similar to chicken and noodles, I wanted to give chicken and noodles a try. Although cream of chicken or some other canned soup is a common ingredient in chicken and noodles, I try not to use canned soup since I think it has an odd aftertaste: it’s also a bit high in calories, too.

Since canned cream-of-something soup is in most southern chicken and noodles recipes, I needed to modify the recipe a bit since the canned soup normally adds not only more flavor but also thickens the broth. Wanting to make this classic comfort food dish a bit healthier (and possibly tastier), I set out to develop a new recipe.

Chicken and Noodles No Soup — My chicken and noodles with no soup recipe is lower in calories than the traditional recipe.

How to Thicken Chicken and Noodles Broth Without Soup

In order to thicken my chicken and noodles broth without canned soup, I had to do a few things:

Add evaporated milk – Evaporated milk has about 60% of the water content removed, so it’s a lot thicker than normal milk. Since it’s lower in calories than canned milk and does not have the same odd aftertaste that canned soups do, I knew it would be an important ingredient in my recipe.

Rely on egg noodle starch – Some people add starchy pasta water to thicken up sauce, so I thought the same idea could work with chicken and noodles. By adding plenty of noodles, the starch that came off the noodles would help to thicken the broth.

Use less water – In order for the egg noodle starch to have a significant effort, I knew I had to be careful with the amount of water I added to this dish: too much water, and the starch wouldn’t have much thickening effect. That’s why throughout this recipe I only added water when necessary.

With these principles, I thought I had a good change of thickening the broth without relying on canned soup, heavy cream, or other fatty dairy products.

How to Make Chicken and Noodles Recipe With Egg Noodles

Learning how to make chicken and noodles with egg noodles is easy and fairly quick: you just have to keep a few things in mind. I want everyone’s pot of chicken and noodles to turn out just as good as mine, so I let’s go over the recipe in more detail.

Homemade Chicken Stock

The first reason why my recipe for chicken and noodles with egg noodles is so good is that I use homemade chicken broth. Although many recipes on the Internet call for boiling chicken breasts in storebought vegetable or chicken stock, your dish will turn out a lot more flavorful if you boil bone-in chicken with vegetables to make a flavorful stock.

You can use any piece of chicken you have on hand, but I like using chicken leg quarters when making soup or stews. Bone-in chicken has more fat and connective tissue, so the resulting broth has a depth of flavor that boiling chicken breasts, or even boneless chicken thighs, does not.

Chicken Stock Secret Ingredient: Bay Leaf

I use the standard vegetables for stock: garlic, onion, celery, and carrots–and I also add a couple bay leaves. Bay leaf isn’t absolutely necessary in this recipe, but it adds a background flavor that you don’t notice until it’s not there. Even if you “cheat” and boil your chicken in storebought vegetable stock, I still recommend adding a couple bay leaves–trust me, you’ll thank me later.

After cooking the chicken leg quarters on low heat for 1.5-2 hours, I turned off the heat and let it cool down a bit. I then strained the chicken stock and put it back into the pot.

Remove and De-Bone Chicken

In the video, I waited to debone the chicken until I had already started cooking the vegetables. However, once the chicken leg quarters were cool enough to handle, you can go ahead and pull the meat off the bone. Even though some recipes call for leaving the chicken on the bone, I think that chicken and noodles is best if you can have a bit of noodles and chicken in each bite.

Since I wanted the see the chicken a bit more in this dish than most other chicken soups, I left the chicken in larger pieces than I normally do. I then set the meat aside so I could continue with the recipe.

Adding Vegetables to the Broth

Almost all chicken and noodles recipes have vegetables, usually carrots, onions and celery. I love garlic and onions but not the sharp bite, so I wanted to cook them a bit longer than the other vegetables.

I added chopped garlic and onion to cold chicken stock so that they would have the maximum amount of time to mellow out. After they boiled for 10 minutes, I then added chopped celery and carrots.

Returning the Chicken to the Pot

After letting the carrots and celery cook boil for 10 minutes, I returned the chicken meat to the pot. Since the meat was already cooked, you could wait until closer to the end of the recipe, especially if you want to make sure that the chicken stays in big chunks.

Adding the Egg Noodles

Then, I added the egg noodles to the pot. If I remember correctly, I used extra-wide egg noodles. Although I think you can use whatever type of egg noodles you want, Mandy Rivers from SouthYourMoth.com said that when she made chicken and noodles, her store-brand noodles started falling apart. Considering her experience, you might not want to use the cheapest noodles.

*NOTE: In the video, I said I used 8 oz (1/2 pound) of egg noodles, but I was mistaken: I used 6 oz. Most boxes of pasta are 16 oz, but most bags of egg noodles are 12 oz; so, half of the bag would be 6 oz.

Obviously, noodles and other types of pasta need to be submerged in liquid in order to cook. However, since I was going to be partly relying on noodle starch to help thicken the broth, I didn’t want to add too much water. That’s why I add the noodles to the pot before adding any more liquid so that I would only add the minimum amount needed.

Thickening Chicken and Noodles with Evaporated Milk

Instead of adding more water to the pot to cover the noodles, I first added evaporated milk. As I already said, I thought that evaporated milk would allow me to thicken the broth without adding canned soup or heavy cream. Boiled milk tends to foam up, so make sure that you make your chicken and noodles in a large pot so that the pot doesn’t overflow.

One can of evaporated milk wasn’t enough liquid to cook the egg noodles, so I added more water. Although I could have added more evaporated milk if you wanted, I didn’t want to mask the chicken flavor in the broth.

I then brought the pot to a boil again. The evaporated milk made the broth foam almost up to the top of the pot, so as previously stated, be sure to make this recipe in a big pot.

The egg noodles need to boil for 10 minutes, so at the 8-minute mark, I added my spices. After boiling the spices for 2 minutes so that they could fully hydrate, my chicken and noodles recipe was done!

Easy Chicken and Noodles Recipe — This easy chicken and noodles recipe has just a few ingredients but is still full of flavor.

What Vegetables Can You Serve In Chicken and Noodles?

As with most of my other chicken soup recipes, I used garlic, onion, celery, and carrot in this dish. However, chicken and noodles is a versatile recipe, so you can use almost whatever you want. As long as they vegetables are chopped in small pieces so that they all cook equally, you can use:

Carrot

Celery

Peas

Green Beans

Corn

Potatoes – Make sure the potatoes are cut into small pieces so they cook quickly.

Like I said, this recipe is super versatile: use whatever you like or have on hand that day!

What Spices to Add to Chicken and Noodles?

Even though the broth was already very flavorful, I wanted to add some spices to really make this chicken and noodles recipe the best it could be. When it comes to soup and spices, I have a few tips:

Wait until near the end – If you season the soup at the beginning, the spices (especially salt) may become too concentrated by the time the broth has reduced down due to evaporation.

Add a little at a time – You can always add more later, but it’s very difficult to remove an ingredient.

With this rules of thumb guiding me, I waited until my pot of chicken and noodles was almost done before I added spices. When I did add spices, I was conservative: I added some, tried the soup, and then added some more. I ended up adding 1/2 teaspoon each of:

Salt

Black Pepper

Garlic Powder

Onion Powder

Poultry Seasoning

Parsley

Oregano

Although I decided not to add sage, I think you could. Sage can make dishes bitter if you add too much, so I would add just 1/4 teaspoon to be on the safe side.

What To Serve with Chicken and Noodles

Honestly, I didn’t serve anything with my chicken and noodles: with plenty of meat, vegetables, and egg noodles, I thought a large bowl was hearty enough to be a meal all on its own. However, if you wanted to serve something on the side, here is a list of things that go well with chicken and noodles:

Cornbread – Cornbread is a staple in many southern kitchens. There’s no doubt it’s great crumbled into a bowl of collard greens, but skillet cornbread is also great crumbled into the rich, thick broth of chicken and noodles, too.

Biscuits – There’s nothing more delicious than warm biscuits with plenty of butter.

Grilled Cheese – Everyone knows that tomato soup and grilled cheese go well together, but grilled cheese goes well with many types of soup. When served with old fashioned southern style chicken and noodles, I recommend using cheddar.

Can You Freeze Chicken and Noodles?

Unfortunately, I don’t think that chicken and noodles would freeze well. When thawed, the noodles would be mushy, ruining the texture. Also, I’m not sure about the evaporated milk. Although it is perfectly safe to freeze and then thaw milk, thawed milk can have a grainy texture or show fat separation.

If you really want to freeze chicken and noodles, I would definitely recommend making the chicken soup part–without the noodles or evaporated milk–and then freezing that in individual containers. When you want to serve, simply defrost a portion and add evaporated milk and egg noodles. Since you will be adding liquid in the form of evaporated milk, be sure to reduce the broth before freezing.

How Long Does Chicken and Noodles Last?

Chicken and noodles will last in the refrigerator for 2-3 days before the quality really starts to decline. However, if you think that you won’t finish the whole pot in one day, I don not recommend adding all the egg noodles. Instead, split the chicken, vegetables, and broth into two pot: one for that day, another for later.

Then, only add egg noodles to the portion that you will eat that day. By not having the egg noodles sit in the broth for days, you do not have to worry about mushy noodles.

Old Fashioned Chicken and Noodles — Old fashioned chicken and noodles is warm and comforting on a cold fall or winter day.

A Chef’s Review

Honestly, my chicken and noodles recipe with egg noodles was delicious. I was really surprised by how flavorful it was given that it didn’t have many ingredients. Once again, the evaporated milk had a big part to play in this.

Also, I think that adding a good amount of spices made it very flavorful. I know I added more spices than most people do, but I think it really made this good in spite of it being a healthy version. Along with the homemade chicken stock that was the base of this recipe, this was definitely a success.

Possible Changes To My Chicken and Noodles Recipe with Egg Noodles

Although I think this dish turned out great, some possible changes I’d like to try in the future include adding:

Sour Cream – I like things with a bit of tang, so even though it’s higher in calories, I think it would be good in this.

Onion Soup Mix – I add onion soup mix to a lot of things, so I wonder how it would be in this.