Quick & Easy Chicken Noodle Soup — Ready in 20 Minutes! 🍲
A Love Story in a Bowl
Quick & easy chicken noodle soup is the kind of recipe that exists because of love. The flu was going around the dorms this year and our college girls Hannah and Kira were not feeling well, so I did what any mama would do — I grabbed what I had in the kitchen and made a pot of chicken noodle soup to run over to them. Because mama love is the best medicine. I do not have scientific proof on that but I am pretty confident. This soup tastes like it simmered all day, but it comes together in about 20 minutes from the moment the garlic hits the pan to the moment you ladle it into a bowl.
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Watch me make this chicken noodle soup from start to finish — or scroll down for the full printable recipe card.
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Quick and Easy Chicken Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 1-2 tablespoons butter
- 1 small to medium onion chopped
- 3-4 cloves garlic chopped
- ½ cup celery chopped
- 1 cup carrots chopped or shredded
- 2 cups cooked chicken chopped or shredded
- 6-8 cups chicken broth
- 1 ½ cups egg noodles
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- Salt and pepper to taste
Equipment
- Large pot
- Cutting board
- Sharp knife
Method
- In a large pot melt butter over medium heat.
- Add onion, celery, and carrots and sauté until softened — about 5 minutes.
- Add garlic and cook for another minute until fragrant. Enjoy that smell!
- Add chicken broth, cooked chicken, basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Stir to combine.
- Add egg noodles and bring to a boil.
- Reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.
- Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Pour yourself a bowl — you’ve earned it. 🍲
Video
Notes
Why This Quick & Easy Chicken Noodle Soup Works
This quick & easy chicken noodle soup tastes like it has been simmering all day — but it only takes about 20 minutes from start to finish. When the garlic hits the pan the whole kitchen smells incredible. A good Dutch oven makes all the difference here — it holds heat evenly and lets you build flavor fast, which is exactly what a quick soup needs. And when the oregano goes in? Oregano just smells like home to me. Every single time.
I have made this soup so many times with so many different kinds of noodles, but egg noodles are the winner every time — they hold up beautifully and don’t just soak up all that gorgeous broth. They are my favorite noodle for soup. Speaking of the broth — it is warm, rich, and absolutely beautiful. I may have poured a little bowl for myself before running it over to the girls. It was too good not to.
Comfort in a bowl. Made with mama love. It can cure whatever ails you. The Kitchn has a great walkthrough on the technique behind a good quick chicken noodle soup if you want to read more on why this works — but honestly, the recipe is so simple you can just trust it and get cooking.
A Few Things That Make Quick & Easy Chicken Noodle Soup Even Easier
- Use a rotisserie chicken. The recipe calls for cooked chicken, and there is no faster path to cooked chicken than picking one up from the grocery store on your way home. Pull the meat off the bones, chop or shred it, and you have your two cups in five minutes flat. You can absolutely cook chicken breasts ahead of time too, but the rotisserie chicken shortcut is what makes this a 20-minute soup.
- Don’t skip the sauté. Butter, onion, celery, garlic, carrots — three to four minutes in the pot before any liquid goes in. That is where the depth comes from in a quick soup. If you skip it and just dump everything into the broth, the soup will taste flat. Three minutes of attention is the whole game.
- Use egg noodles specifically — not regular pasta. Egg noodles hold their shape and don’t suck up the broth the way spaghetti or elbow macaroni will. I have tried it every which way, and egg noodles win every single time. If you only have regular pasta, cook it separately and stir it in at the end so the soup itself stays brothy.
- Measure the broth with a big Pyrex measuring cup . The recipe wants 6 to 8 cups of broth depending on how brothy you like it. Eyeballing two cartons is fine, but a 4-cup measuring cup means you can pour exactly what you want and adjust on the fly.
- Salt and pepper at the end, not the beginning. Boxed broth is already salted. If you salt the soup before it has reduced even a little, you can end up with a salt-bomb you cannot undo. Taste it after the noodles cook and season then.
Quick & Easy Chicken Noodle Soup FAQ — The Questions I Get Every Time
How long does this quick & easy chicken noodle soup take to make?
About 30 minutes start to finish — 10 minutes of prep (chopping the vegetables, pulling apart a rotisserie chicken) and 20 minutes on the stove (sautéing, simmering, cooking the noodles). I call it a 20-minute soup because that is what the active cooking time feels like when you are using a rotisserie chicken — the prep barely registers as work. If you are starting from raw chicken, build in an extra 15 minutes to poach or sauté it first.
Can I make quick & easy chicken noodle soup ahead of time?
You absolutely can, with one tweak. The noodles will keep soaking up broth in the fridge, so if you know you are eating this over a few days, cook the noodles separately and add them to each bowl as you reheat. Store the soup base in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. If you are making it for someone who needs it right now (the whole reason this recipe exists), make it all together and serve it warm.
Can I freeze this chicken noodle soup?
Yes — but freeze the broth and chicken without the noodles. Cooked egg noodles do not freeze well; they turn mushy when you thaw them. Freeze the soup base in quart containers for up to 3 months. When you are ready to eat it, thaw overnight in the fridge, bring back to a simmer, and cook fresh egg noodles right in the pot.
What kind of chicken should I use?
Cooked chicken — about 2 cups, chopped or shredded. Rotisserie chicken is my go-to because it is fast and the meat is already seasoned. Leftover roasted chicken or poached chicken breast both work beautifully too. If all you have is raw chicken, poach 2 boneless breasts in the broth for about 12 minutes, pull them out and shred them, then return the meat to the pot.
Can I substitute the egg noodles?
You can, but I really do think egg noodles are best — they hold their shape and don’t suck up the broth. If you need to swap, ditalini or small shells work next best. Avoid long thin pastas like spaghetti or angel hair, they break apart in the bowl. For gluten-free, gluten-free fusilli is your best bet — but cook it separately and add it to each bowl so it doesn’t turn the broth starchy.
How do I make the broth taste richer in a quick soup?
Two things make a huge difference. First, sauté the vegetables in butter before adding the broth — that is where the depth comes from when you don’t have hours to simmer bones. Second, start with a good boxed broth (I use Swanson ) rather than water plus bouillon cubes. The boxed broth already has body. If you want to push the flavor even further, add a teaspoon of Better Than Bouillon chicken base to the pot — it intensifies everything without making it salty.
How do I scale this for a crowd?
The recipe serves 8 as written, which is enough for our family of seven with a little left over. To feed a bigger crowd or have leftovers, just double everything — same Dutch oven works as long as you have a 6 to 7 quart pot, or split it across two pots if not. The cook time stays the same. If you are dropping it off for a sick friend, a half batch in a quart container is the perfect amount.
🛒 Complete Shopping List
Everything you need to make this Quick & Easy Chicken Noodle Soup — click any item to shop on Amazon.
Ingredients
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Equipment
More Cozy Crowd-Friendly Soups and Dinners
- Daddy’s Famous Crockpot Chili — Jason’s secret-ingredient chili that has been warming this family up for years
- 4 Ingredient No-Peek Chicken and Rice — Jason’s mom’s recipe and one of the most-requested dinners in this house
- Crockpot Chicken Nachos — The Easiest Dinner for a Crowd — when you want something hearty and crowd-pleasing with almost zero effort
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Quick & Easy Chicken Noodle Soup — About Stephanie’s Recipes
Stephanie Longstreth is the home cook, mom, and storyteller behind StephanieCooksForACrowd.com. She cooks for a family of seven in Florida — five kids, two cats, and one husband who appreciates a good meal. Four of her children came home through adoption, and family stories are woven into everything she makes and shares. Find her crowd-friendly recipes, weekly meal plans, and real family life on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest @stephaniecooksforacrowd.