Making Homemade Chicken Soup For Colds

Homemade Chicken Soup!

Recently, my husband went to our credit union and was inside for about five minutes. He came out complaining that the teller had a very bad cold and he was afraid he'd catch it. He did! So did I! Why can't they stay home when they have colds? Well, if you have a job they frown on you taking off for being sick in bed. So how do you think they'd react if you only had................a cold?????????

Cooking A Whole Chicken

Most people attribute the benefical benefit of chicken soup to clearing up colds to the steam, that comes from the hot soup. You are breathing it in and it clears up the congestion. According to Irwin Ziment, M.D., pulmonary specialist and professor at the UCLA School for Medicine, the chicken releases an amino acid that is somewhat like the drug, acetylcysteine, which is an ingredient in cold medicines.

Debone the chicken!

We are all familiar with the medinical benefits of spices, such as garlic and pepper, as well, as onions. These are all known treatments of respiratory diseases. They work by thinning out the mucus and making breathing much easier. Stephen Rennard, M.D., chief of pulmonary medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, tested chicken soup in his lab. His conclusion is that chicken soup acts as an anti-inflammatory. It controls the neutrophils, the inflammatory white blood cells. Cold symptoms, such as coughs and congestion, are often caused by inflammation produced when neutrophils travel to the bronchial tubes and accumulate there.

My Ingredients

My Homemade Chicken Soup


1 whole chicken
4 carrots, sliced or one can
1 can whole tomatoes (I use skinless variety)
6 medium potatoes, cubed
4 stalks celery, sliced
celery leaves chopped
1 large onion, chopped (I do not add this as my husband will not eat it if I do)
water to cover
salt and pepper to taste (I skipped the salt)
Garlic powder to taste
4-6 chicken bouillon cubes, low sodium without MSG
1 package of noodles

Chopped the celery including leaves

Put the chicken in a large soup pot and cover with cold water. Heat and simmer, uncovered, until the chicken meat falls off of the bone. I like to make a lot so use a really big stockpot. You can use a smaller size one.

Soup Simmering!

Take the chicken out of the pot. Pick the meat off of the bones, cube the potatoes, and chop the carrots, celery and onion. Season the broth with salt, pepper, garlic and chicken bouillon to taste. Return the chicken, and add the potatoes, carrots, celery, tomato and onion to the pot and simmer.

Tastes so good!

I feel the longer it cooks the better it gets. I make a big stock pot of it, so I do not follow the amounts in the recipe. I don't usually use a recipe so this is one I put together from the way I make it. Do it the way you like. A bowl of it on a cold day makes a nice snack if you have it on the wood stove simmering. You can play with it to suit your family. It is really much better the next day or longer.

Copyright © 2012 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2012  Kathleen G. Lupole