From Krysta’s Kitchen: Grandma’s Chicken and Noodles

Welcome to another feature from Krysta’s Kitchen, grab a beer and let’s do some cooking! As you’ve probably noticed, this issue of the magazine is really focusing on our western heritage and culture. Well, it doesn’t get any more western than Grandma’s Chicken and Noodles. I am sure that all of you have your own family recipes that have been passed down through the generations, for me, that recipe is Chicken and Noodles. It’s the meal that we had on every holiday and every trip to see grandma, we knew what we would be eating for dinner. 

Now to give you a little background, my grandma is from an old farm town in Ohio. So she grew up eating whatever they could make with what her family had. Back then, this recipe wasn’t exclusively made with chicken, but with any kind of meat that the family could get a hold of. Sometimes it was Chicken and Noodles and sometimes it was Squirrel and Noodles, you just never knew what you were getting. Thankfully, for you guys, I skipped this variation and stuck with chicken. 

You might notice in the recipe below that the measurements aren’t exact. This is because this is one of those “adapt as you go” recipes. Depending on where you live, your dough might come out drier or stickier so you should balance your dough out accordingly. A quick note on the chicken, you can one hundred percent cook and boil a raw chicken for this recipe but it will add a couple of hours to your cooking time so if you have the time, go for it, but in this recipe, I cheated a little bit and used a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Don’t tell grandma! Also, I didn’t include the recipe for the mashed potatoes, but it is a staple in grandma’s house to eat your carbs with more carbs, so it’s really non-negotiable. I should also briefly mention that this recipe shouldn’t scare you, I’m a pretty avid cook but have never made noodles before and this came out great the first time! 

Enough chit-chat, let’s dig in! Below you will find the ingredients needed for this recipe, but please note that there are several ways to get to the end result and this recipe can be very much adapted to whoever is making it. 

Grandma’s Chicken and Noodles Recipe

Cook Time: About an hour

Equipment: 

• Big soup pot
• Rolling pin
• Pizza cutter

Ingredients 

• A whole cooked chicken
• 1 diced onion
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 2 ½ – 4  cups All-Purpose Flour (set aside 2 ½ tablespoons)
• 3 tablespoons of milk
• 3 eggs
• Salt/Pepper/Garlic Powder
• 5 cups of Chicken Broth
• 4-6 cups of mashed potatoes (because there’s no other way to eat chicken and noodles)

Directions

1. Prepare your chicken. If you’re cooking it from raw, then go ahead and do that or shred your rotisserie chicken into a bowl and set it aside.
2. Let’s make a roux! Turn your soup pot on medium heat, then add your butter and diced onions.
3. Let the butter melt, then add in 2 ½ tablespoons of flour, and whisk together for 30-60 seconds or until your flour starts to smell nutty and is slightly brown.
4. Once your flour has cooked, add in your broth a little bit at a time, whisking as you go to prevent clumps. Keep adding the rest of your broth until combined. The end result should be a stew-like consistency.
5. Go ahead and dump your shredded chicken in the broth as well as salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste.
6. Turn your pot to medium-low and let simmer while preparing your noodles.

Noodle Directions

Pro-Tip: I used my hands and a fork to mix my noodle dough. You can definitely use a mixer but it’s not required.

1. Crack your eggs into a large mixing bowl and whisk with milk, then add a pinch of salt.
2. Slowly add your flour (½ cup at a time) and stir with a fork until dough forms. I switched to mixing it with my hands once it started sticking to the fork.
3. You want to keep adding flour until your dough is no longer sticky. I stopped at about 3 cups of flour.
4. Once the dough wasn’t sticking to the bowl and everything was pretty well mixed together, prepare a floured surface and dump your dough out and knead it 2-3 times to make sure you don’t have any soft spots in your dough. Add more flour if it looks too sticky and adds more milk if it feels too dry and crumbly. Then form a rough ball.
5. Flour your rolling pin and start rolling out your dough. You want your noodles to be about ¼ in thick and your dough sheet should be 12 inches across.
6. Use a pizza cutter to make vertical cuts down your dough. Your noodles should be about a half-inch wide. Then make 3-4 horizontal cuts to make your noodles 3-4 inches long.
7. Bring your broth up to a boil and start dropping your noodles in a few at a time, making sure to stir as you go to prevent sticking. Keep adding until they are all in the pot and boil for 3 minutes until noodles are fluffy. Do the spoon test and grab a noodle for taste testing.
8. Your noodles should have a slight chew to them, but not be too tough or soft.

If your noodles are good to go then get yourself a bowl of mashed potatoes, top it with Grandma’s Chicken and Noodles, then grab yourself a chair because you’re going to need a nap after eating! Cheers, and enjoy!