Julie Clark
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Copycat Bob Evans Chicken & Noodles
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Comforting Copycat Bob Evans Chicken & Noodles is one of our favorite slow cooker recipes. With thick, amish noodles, it’s pure comfort food!
We love eating out together as a family. To put away phones and simply sit around a table in a restaurant (and have someone else serve you!) creates in me a satisfying, peaceful sigh. It’s so good.
But when you have a family of 5, it can often get expensive to eat out often. And sometimes sickness keeps you home. It’s in those times when it can be fun to recreate a favorite restaurant recipe together as a family.
Bob Evans Chicken & Noodles is one of my favorite restaurant meals because it is so comforting. Thick Amish-style noodles, shredded chicken, rich buttery broth and just a few basic veggies. And better yet? It’s made in the slow cooker. Fix & forget. So there’s nothing at the end of a long day preventing you from relaxing with your family.
I’ll walk you through the easy steps to make this ultimate comfort food soup!
How to Make Chicken & Noodles
Plan for about 7 hours on low or 4 hours on high for cooking this soup. But please note….don’t add the noodles until there is about an hour left in cooking. Otherwise they will get too soft.
- Add the chicken, chicken broth, and butter to a slow cooker. Really? 1 stick of butter? Yes. Just do it. It makes the broth so rich and flavorful.
- Then cut up the celery, carrots, and onions. We use yellow or white onions. We’ve used red onions in a pinch, but they do have a much stronger flavor. Add them to the slow cooker.
- Add your pepper and salt. Now this can be to taste. The broth will have salt and if you use salted butter that will also add salt. You can wait to add salt to each bowl at the end if you are limiting salt intake.
- Let it simmer in the slow cooker for 4 hours if you put it on high, or 7 hours if you put it on low.
- With 1 hour remaining, remove the chicken and shred it with a fork.
- Then put the chicken back in and add the noodles. We like to buy Amish noodles (we’ve done both wide and thin cut) or you can buy frozen Reames homestyle noodles. If you buy those, follow the instructions on the back of the package you buy for how long to cook them.
The noodles will be ready in about an hour.
**Scroll underneath the recipe for serving ideas and substitutions.**
Love this soup? Try it with potatoes in our Chicken Potato Soup recipe.
Bob Evans Chicken & Noodles {Copycat Recipe}
Comforting Copycat Bob Evans Chicken & Noodles is one of our favorite slow cooker recipes. With thick, amish noodles, it’s pure comfort food!
Servings 10 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 7 hours
Total Time 7 hours 10 minutes
Ingredients
- 9 cups chicken stock
- 3/4 cup chopped carrots
- 3/4 cup chopped celery
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast
- 16 ounces homestyle noodles
Instructions
- Add the chicken broth, chicken, butter, carrots, celery, onion, pepper and salt to the slow cooker.
- Cook this on low for 7 hours or on high for 3-4 hours.
- Remove the chicken and shred it with a fork.
- Return the chicken to the slow cooker and add the noodles to cook for another hour.
- Serve.
Video
Notes
The calories shown are based on the recipe serving 10, with 1 serving being just under 2 cups of soup. Since different brands of ingredients have different nutritional information, the calories shown are just an estimate. **We are not dietitians and recommend you seek a nutritionist for exact nutritional information.**
Nutrition
Serving: 432g | Calories: 449kcal | Carbohydrates: 43g | Protein: 32g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 127mg | Sodium: 634mg | Potassium: 747mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 1983IU | Vitamin C: 4mg | Calcium: 39mg | Iron: 2mg
Adapted from Food.com
Can you make chicken & noodles in the instant pot?
Yes! This recipe is much quicker in the Instant Pot. Here’s how to do it:
- Add the chicken stock, chicken, butter and veggies to the IP.
- Put the lid on your pot, set the steam release knob to the seal.
- Press the manual, or Pressure Cook button and then set to high pressure, 12 minutes.
- When the 12 minutes is done, allow the pot to naturally release for 10 minutes.
- Release remaining pressure, then remove chicken.
- Add the noodles into the IP with the cooked broth. Stir well. Set the IP to saute to keep the broth warm. The noodles will take about 10 minutes to soften. Stir several times during this 10 minutes.
- Shred the chicken with a fork and add it back in while the noodles are softening.
What to Serve with Chicken and Noodles
This recipe is perfect served with a side salad and fresh homemade bread. Here are a few favorites:
And try some homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you use stock instead of broth?
Yes! We often use stock instead of broth. And you can also use chicken bouillon cubes in a pinch. Use one cube per cup of water for a deliciously rich broth.
Can you use frozen vegetables?
Yes. We almost always use fresh vegetables, but you can use frozen mirepoix or mixed vegetables in this recipe. Note: If they are finely diced you may want to wait to add them so they don’t end up mushy.
What other noodles can you use?
We’ve used dry Amish noodles, egg noodles and frozen Reames noodles in this recipe. You can also use pasta of any kind if you’d like.
Does this recipe keep well?
As the soup sits, the noodles will continue to absorb liquid and thicken. The second day it will be more like a stew than a soup, but it is still delicious.
My family of 7 ALL loved this dinner and you can get a better recommendation than that. Pleasing all 7 isn’t always that easy to do. Love this meal, it’s easy to make and delicious. My granddaughter is looking for seconds the next day.
Very good. I had some leftover roasting herbs, so I tied them up in cheesecloth and added them. Made a lot! I wish I had cooked the noodles separately so I could freeze it. I will next time!
Absolutely love this recipe. Not only is it like Bob Evans but a small family restaurant in our community that was better than Bob Evans and went out of business. Thank you! Making it tomorrow.
Made it once and it was AWESOME!!! Making it again this week.
Home made noodles is so easy, my 9 year old daughter made this meal many tiimes and the recipe for the noodles is only egg, egg yolks, flour, salt, and enough water to make a firm ball. Roll them out and cut with a pizza cutter, drop in boiling chicken & broth, cool until not doughy.
Can you use chicken breast with the skin on then remove when done to shred?
Everyone is leaving great reviews for this recipe but I can’t. We made it this evening and followed the recipe to a “T”. The only difference was that we didn’t have time for the slow cooker, so we used our pressure cooker.
Cooked all ingredients except the noodles for 20 minutes. Then added the noodles and cooked for an additional 10 minutes. Everything was done using these times.
Our only complaint was that this was very, very bland. No flavor at all, and we can’t put our finger on what is missing. Any suggestions?