Winter is cold and flu season and everyone has their "weapons" against it, whether that be elderberry syrup or chicken noodle soup. Perhaps there is no better tried and true "remedy" than the old standby of chicken noodle soup.

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🐔 The Amish and Chicken Noodle Soup
📋 Step-By-Step By Amish Chicken Noodle Soup
🍲 Amish Soup Recipes
🖨️ Full Recipe

🐔 The Amish and Chicken Noodle Soup

The Berne, Indiana Amish settlement has rich culinary traditions that have remained largely intact over the years, connected to generations of Swiss-German settlers that came before them. The Great Depression exerted a large influence over the Amish cooks in this area. So you find a combination of old Swiss recipes and very basic bare bones Great Depression dishes.

This is an easy chicken noodle soup recipe given to me by an Amish woman in Berne. I asked her how she made her chicken soup.
"I don't have a recipe, it's all in my brain," she said, pointing to her kapp-covered head with a smile.

"Any chance you might write it down? Our readers would love it!" I asked. And she graciously pulled out the recipe card you see here and shared it with us.

The celery is a hallmark of Swiss Amish culinary culture so I'm not surprised to see that. You do have to cook the chicken separately prior to starting the soup. We had a laugh because she wrote out the recipe on this card in about 30 seconds, maybe 1 minute, and the handwriting is beautiful. I showed her my illegible writings in my notepad and she laughed.

You can make the recipe on the card, but I met another Amish woman who made that exact same recipe but added some more seasonings, and I preferred that soup better, so that is the version I'll share.

📋 Step-By-Step By Amish Chicken Noodle Soup

Well, above are the carrots. I just thought I'd try shredded them with a cheese grated and I ended up with a lot of carrot mush to throw into the soup. I'd probably stick with slicing them. I did that for some and they cooked nice and tender.

I took all the meat off the bones of a rotisserie chicken and set aside and I first boiled the carcasses soup base for 15 minutes just add even more chicken flavor and then I removed the bones.

This is the soup with the pieces of rotisserie chicken in it. Personally, I like my soup with big chunks of chicken in it and wide noodles. So this soup was right up my alley!