Tips for making Ninja Foodi Chicken Noodle Soup:
1. See if the grocer sells pre-pulled rotisserie chicken by checking. I can buy packaged containers of white meat, dark meat, or mixed white and dark meat rotisserie chicken in the deli section of my grocery store, which saves me a ton of time because they do all the work for me! Even though there is a small additional cost, the convenience makes it well worth the money!
2. Reduce or omit the salt in the recipe and use low- or no-sodium chicken broth if you’d prefer a lower sodium option.
3.When cooking pasta in the Instant Pot, feel free to modify the pasta from the recipe. If you like bowties- go for it. If you like penne- go for it. The trick is to look at the cooking times on the box. Whatever the box says- cut it in half and subtract 2 minutes. So, if the box says to cook for 10 minutes, you will cut that in half (5) and subtract 2. Altogether you would cook for 3 minutes.
4. You can use uncooked chicken if you would like. To prepare this recipe, chop boneless, raw chicken into small pieces and add it to the mixture in the first step. Combine the raw chicken with the carrots, celery, and onion at the same time. Saute the chicken until it begins to turn white from cooking. The chicken will continue to cook during the pressure cooking period, so you don’t need to cook it all the way through.
5. For this recipe, I strongly suggest using Better Than Bouillon, which is a chicken broth substitute when combined with water, if you have access to it. While either will function, Better Than Bouillon adds a richer flavor than just broth. Better Than Bouillon tends to be a little on the salty side, so watch how much salt you add if you use it.
6. You can use frozen veggies in this recipe to cut down on preparation time and simplify it even further. This simple modification to the recipe will result in a significant reduction in prep time. If you use frozen vegetables, none of the instructions need to be changed.
How to make Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup in the Ninja Foodi or Electric Pressure Cooker
This recipe is broken down into two steps. Making the broth and then making the chicken noodle soup. The whole process takes about an hour, or you can begin by preparing the broth and finish the soup a few hours later or even the following day or two.
Even better, if you start dinner early in the day, you can allow the broth to naturally release all of its heat before switching it to a warm setting and leaving it there for several hours until you’re ready to make the soup.
Make the broth and then chill it for at least eight hours to allow the fat to float to the top and solidify if you want to extract as much fat as possible from your homemade chicken noodle soup. This makes it very easy to remove the fat.
You don’t need to chill the soup beforehand if you have one of the kitchen tools that make it easier to do this even when the soup is warm.
But keep in mind that the fat adds a lot of flavor to this chicken noodle soup, and there has never been enough fat in the soup for me to be concerned about taking it out.
Two to three pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs or breasts, two carrots, two celery stalks, one and a half teaspoons of fine-ground sea salt or kosher salt, one and a half teaspoons of black pepper, two bay leaves, and one and a half teaspoons of dried thyme leaves or one or two sprigs of fresh thyme are needed for the broth.
Because ground thyme is so different from dried thyme leaves, it is much more potent, and I would only add a pinch.
Trim the carrots’ ends and cut the celery in half. The carrots don’t need to be peeled, but you can Slice the onion in half, then remove the ends of the stem and roots. Remove the peel and chop into large chunks.
After adding the veggies to the pot, add six cups of chicken stock or broth. Place the chicken thighs and spices inside, then cover the pressure cooker. After sealing the valve, pressure cook for 20 minutes on high. Allow the pot to naturally release the pressure for at least five minutes (longer is fine) after the timer goes off, then manually release the remaining pressure.
Carefully remove the chicken from the broth and set on a cutting board to cool. Remove the solid vegetables and bay leaves. I like to use this large (affiliate link)Scoop N Drain from Pampered Chef because it is a nice big scoop and saves time. You can use any slotted spoon though.
Next, use a fine-mesh strainer to extract any remaining particles and unwanted material from the chicken thighs by straining the broth. Although it’s not absolutely essential, doing this will result in the prettiest-looking broth.
Here is a similar strainer to the one I use: (affiliate link)Fine Mesh Strainer
I’ve discovered the hard way that pouring a full pot of hot broth can be dangerous, so I like to ladle the broth out until I’m left with just a few cups. I had it splatter and burn me.
After the broth is strained, or removed from the pot altogether Rinse the pot out and remove any residue. In order to check if anything is clogging the pressure lid, now is a good time to rinse it and remove the silver cap from the underside. Check out the video or the section above where I discuss what happened to me!
Ingredients for making Ninja Foodi Chicken Noodle Soup:
- 2 tablespoons salted butter
- 1 medium onion-diced- about 1.5 cups after dicing
- 3 celery ribs- diced- about 1.5 cups after dicing
- 3 large carrots- peeled and diced- about 1. 5 cups after dicing.
- 2 teaspoons garlic-minced
- 1 pound rotisserie chicken meat-cut into bite-sized pieces
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon thyme-dried
- Ten cups of chicken broth (I used a combination of water and Better Than Bouillon)
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 12 ounces extra-wide egg noodles
- 2 bay leaves
