Is there a more comforting food than homemade chicken soup? If there is, I haven’t found it. My go-to Chicken Soup With Pasta is a recipe that takes time to execute, but most of that time is devoted to simmering the ingredients, so you can be doing other things in the meantime.

Yes, you can much simplify this recipe by just cooking some chicken parts in store-bought stock, but believe me, the loss in both taste and nutrition is enormous. By adding the pasta and vegetables to this soup, you essentially have a full meal in a bowl.

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One of the great techniques to enrich a stock and give it a deeper golden color I learned from a chef at the once-famous New York City restaurant, Lespinasse. Cut the onion and one of the tomatoes in half. Heat a dry skillet over medium-high heat and place the cut onion and tomato, cut side down.

Caramelize the onion and tomato.

Allow them to cook until they begin to caramelize (they turn slightly black), then flip them and let the other side caramelize.

Flip the onion and tomato

Remove them from the pan and set aside

Place the whole chicken (plus the neck and giblets if you have them) in a very large pot. Pour on the quart of chicken stock and enough cold water to cover the bird.  My preferred chicken stock Swanson’s Organic Chicken Broth because it seems to have the richest taste.

Bring the pot to a simmer over medium low heat. As the scum begins to rise to the top, carefully skim it off with a large spoon. This may take several minutes, and it is much more easily accomplished if done before adding other ingredients.

Remove the scum.

Once you feel you’ve removed all the scum, you can add the caramelized onion and tomato, the thyme, rosemary, parsley, bay leaf, salt, 2 celery stalks sliced, plus its leaves, 2 sliced carrots, and the peppercorns.

Add the vegetables and herbs.

Cover the pot, but leave the cover slightly askew so that steam can escape. Continue simmering for 4-5 hours, or until the chicken is fully cooked, and you believe you’ve rendered as much flavor from the vegetables and herbs as possible. Never let the stock come to a boil or all the fat will be incorporated into the broth. You want to have a clear, clean broth. Just keep the stock at the simmer so that you get just a few slow bubbles.

Remove the chicken from the stock and set aside to cool. Into a kettle, strain the remaining stock, vegetables, neck and giblets through a sieve, pressing down on the vegetables to extract as much flavor as possible.

Strain the vegetables.

Discard the vegetables and giblets. Place the kettle in the refrigerator uncovered for an hour or so to allow all the fat to rise to the surface.

When the fat has risen, skim paper towels over the fat to soak up as much as possible.

Skim off the fat.

You won’t be able to get rid of every last drop—nor is it desirable. A little bit of fat gives a richness to the broth.

In the meantime, remove the chicken meat from the bones, discarding the skin. Break the chicken meat into bite-sized pieces, and set aside.

Bring the stock to the boil, and boil from 3-5 minutes to concentrate the flavors.

I like to add a bit of fresh tomato pulp to my Chicken Soup With Pasta for both color and flavor, and to do this, you must peel, seed, and juice the tomatoes. Bring a small pot of water to the boil. Place the remaining 2 tomatoes in the boiling water for 10 to 15 seconds. Remove the tomatoes, and carefully core and peel them. Then cut the tomatoes in half, and gently squeeze out the seeds and liquid, leaving only the tomato pulp. Coarsely chop the pulp.

Seed, peel, and juice the tomato.

Slice the remaining 3 celery stalks and 3 carrots. Lower the stock to the simmer. Add the sliced celery, carrots, tomato pulp, and the chicken meat, plus a little more chopped parsley.

Add the vegetables.

Continue simmering until the carrots and celery are barely tender.

If you are serving all the soup at once, you may now cook the pasta right in with the chicken soup. I like to use Ditalini, but any small pasta will due.  If you are dividing the soup up over several nights, it’s better to cook the pasta separately because if you reheat it with the pasta it will become obnoxiously mushy. Drain the separately cooked pasta, and place it in the bottom of your serving bowls, then ladle the soup, plus the chicken and vegetables over the cooked pasta. Decorate each serving with a little more finely minced parsley.

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