Reviewed: Mar. 16, 2009

Fantastic! I made the recipe (almost) faithfully the first time, and it was very good. However, I did make a few changes the second time around that made the soup even better. First, much as I love rosemary, I did cut back by about half. I also added closer to 12 c. of water, and threw in about 2 tsp. of solid chicken soup base for extra flavor. Didn't have any penne on hand, so I used multi-colored rotini (which was great and added color and texture to the soup). Finally, I urge you to consider using boneless thigh meat in this recipe--soooo good! Not only does it offer a complex, gamey flavor, it's cheaper than buying breast meat! :)

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Phoebe G-G

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Camperdown, Victoria, Australia

Living In: Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

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Reviewed: Mar. 10, 2009

Good base recipe but like everyone else did I had to add about 4 more cups of water and I used egg noodles instead of penne. I also added some spices including poultry seasoning and a little celery salt. I think next time I will cook the chicken breasts whole and take them out at the end to shred them and put them back in the pot with the noodles and the carrots.

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Kelly

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Reviewed: Jan. 25, 2009

Not enough broth. Added more water and chicken broth.

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denali60

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Reviewed: Nov. 28, 2008

There was a lot of changes to be made to this. I initially followed the 2 tbs of rosemary only to find I had to fish out most of it after the first bite. I did folow the others advise and add more water. The hour of boiling was a lil excessive. So I cut down the cooking time drastically. I also waited till the very end to add the noodles, I don't care for my noodles to be mushy. 20 mins of cooking noodles makes a mush. I prefer my chicken to be a little browned. So before I put the chicken into the pot I put some olive oil and a light dusting of sugar in a pan and seered both sides of the chicken in that. It gives the chicken a nice brown color and an extra flavor to the soup.

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jms

Cooking Level: Intermediate

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Reviewed: Sep. 3, 2007

Wonderful basic chicken noodle soup. Chicken broth definatly adds extra flavor. I will make this over and over. My husband absolutely loved it.

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Crystal P.

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Reviewed: May 4, 2006

I loved this recipe. I followed all the main ingridients but also made some changes. I added celery and more water (about 4 more cups). Since I added more water I also increased the amount of rosemary, thyme, garlic and onions (not by much though). I only used 1/2 a box of penne. I didn't use the 2 TBSP of oil I only added 1/2 TBSP of oil. I also added the juice of 1 sour orange. If you don't have sour orange you can substitute it with lime (to your taste). This recipe is great because it is healthy and all the ingridients used are without any preservatives and good for the body. I loved it!

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JUJIEBEE

Cooking Level: Expert

Home Town: New York, New York, USA

Living In: Yonkers, New York, USA

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Reviewed: Apr. 27, 2006

This was a wonderful and easy recipe. I did make just a few changes. I used 9 cups of water and 9 chicken boulons for flavoring. I wanted to end up with 8 cups for the soup and figured that I would probably lose one during cooking. I used 4 chicken thighs and some chicken tenderloin. I love rosemary, so I didn't think that the taste was too strong. It was just perfect for me. I didn't use thyme, just rosemary. Be sure and put the lid on the pot while you are cooking your soup for an hour and to turn down the heat to simmer, or you will lose too much of your liquid. While the pasta was cooking for about 9 minutes I took out the chicken, cut it into small pieces and returned it to the soup. I served the soup with garlic bread. The flavor was wonderful. My husband loved it. Will become a regular dish in our house. Thanks for sharing the recipe.

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BRAXIGIRL

Cooking Level: Expert

Home Town: Walldürn, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Living In: Cedar Hill, Texas, USA

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Reviewed: Dec. 5, 2005

Save yourself the trouble by not attempting it...especially at the prescribed levels of rosemary...much, much, much too strong!

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Audrey A.

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Reviewed: Nov. 16, 2005

It was ok. I was reading the past comments and what I did was put 16 cups of water, 3 1/2 Tablespoons of chicken boulon and when it is all said and done, the water cooked down and hardly had any broth for this soup.

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IRZQU

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Mequon, Wisconsin, USA

Living In: Port Washington, Wisconsin, USA

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Reviewed: Oct. 5, 2005

A little heavy on the Rosemary but otherwise very good

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DADDYWAX

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Reviewed: Feb. 29, 2004

I ended up having to tweak this recipe a lot. I used 12 cups of chicken bouillon, 1/2 cup of butter, and different seasonings. I also used wide egg noodles instead of penne.

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Wilemon

Cooking Level: Expert

Home Town: Afton, Virginia, USA

Living In: Larkspur, Colorado, USA

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Reviewed: Dec. 11, 2002

This was the first time I have ever tried making any kind of soup(other than canned), and I can't begin to tell you how upset I got after making this recipe! And yes, I followed the recipe word for word! I guess I should say that I have only been cooking(other than frozen dinners) for about 6 months. The recipe sounded just fine, however, after the first part of the recipe was boiled for one hour, I realized that I was in trouble. There was little to no liquid left in my pan. I still added the penne pasta, oil, and carrots anyway, as described in step two of the recipe, figuring that it was just my own lack of faith in my cooking skills that wasn't right. Well, needless to say, after the pasta soaked up what little remaining broth there was, I was left with a thick mess of ingredients and no "soup"! I have sworn that I will never try another soup recipe ever.

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SanAntonioElvis

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Dudley, Massachusetts, USA

Living In: San Antonio, Texas, USA

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Reviewed: Jan. 12, 2002

This is an excellent base recipe, but it lacks flavor and the ratio of ingredients should be adjusted. Eight cups of water does not provide enough broth (at least if you're expected a result similar to standard chicken noodle soup recipes.) Prepared as directed (and adding two more cups of water, there was far too much pasta and too little broth. After we ate this and discovered how bland the broth was, I dressed up the leftovers with a can of chicken broth, onion salt, poultry seasoning and dried parsley flakes. I think future enhancements I would make would be to rub the uncooked chicken with seasonings, because the cooked chicken didn't have much flavor, either. I would also use about 2 cans of chicken broth (perhaps seasoned broth) in place of some of the water. I think this would be good in the slow cooker, simmering on low all day and adding the carrots and pasta at the very end.

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