Loaded Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken noodle soup is a very favorite at our home. My husband actually has this soup along with half a sandwich during his business trips at a Panera Bread if he can find one in the city that he travels to.
My kiddo has loved this soup since she was what six months old. We used to puree the soup and give it to her and she would lap up an entire bowl without any fuss. Well, now we do not need to puree it like before.

We have been making this soup at home with chicken, carrots, onions, garlic, celery and ofcorse chicken with some Italian spices. Thought of just taking it a little bit further and making it a compete meal by adding a few other ingredients. It was a good meal in a bowl with some nice easy peasy home made artisan bread

Ingredients

2 carrots
1 medium onion
5 cloves garlic
3 to 4 celery stalks
2 cups of small bits of chicken (I use breast meat) - about 2 to 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 cups fresh baby spinach
1 can cannelloni beans
1 to 1 & 1/2 cups broken spaghetti (you can add more or less - or any pasta of your choice)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon dried Italian herb seasoning
1/2 teaspoon pepper
salt to taste
5 cups chicken stock (to make it quick) OR 7 cups water and let it simmer for longer

Method

Finely chop the onions, celery, carrots and garlic. Add the oil to a big saucepan and add these veggies to this oil. Once they start to sweat, add some salt and add the chicken pieces. Mix well till the chicken turns a nice white color (the pink is gone). Now add drained cannelloni beans, chopped spinach,  dried Italian herbs, pasta, pepper powder and mix well. Add water or stock and mix well. Bring it to a nice boil. Once this mixture boils, bring the heat to medium low and cover the saucepan and let the soup simmer.
If you are using stock, the simmer time becomes less, as stock has a lot of flavor. maybe in an hour or so the soup is ready to savor. However, if you are using plain water, it takes some time for the water to become flavorful. Soup should be ready in about 3 to 4 hours.
This tastes good with bread and salad - becomes a complete meal in a bowl.

You can make this into a vegetarian soup by not adding the chicken - and substituting vegetable stock for chicken stock, if you plan to use stock/broth