Old-Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup

From America's Test Kitchen Season 12: Slow-Cooker Revolution

Making chicken noodle soup with a deep, satisfying flavor requires a few tricks when using a slow cooker. First, we used a combination of bone-in chicken thighs and breasts. The cooked and shredded breast meat tasted nice in the final soup, but the bone-in thighs really gave the broth its flavor during the long cooking time. And for maximum flavor, we found it necessary to brown the chicken thighs (and remove the skin) before adding them to the slow cooker. To prevent the breast meat from overcooking (which happens when there is a lot of liquid in the slow cooker), we wrapped the chicken breast inside a foil packet. Boiling the noodles separately was a quick and easy way to make sure they had just the right texture.