Are you ready to warm up your taste buds and fill your night with a whole lot of comfort? Look no further than this amazing Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe!
With tender chunks of chicken, savory vegetables, and perfectly cooked noodles, this soup is the ultimate comfort food that will leave you feeling cozy from the inside out. Whether you're battling a cold or just need some good old-fashioned nourishment, it’s undoubtedly a foolproof choice for a hearty, wholesome meal that barely requires any effort.
Is Chicken Noodle Soup Healthy?
Yes, our chicken noodle soup recipe is healthy.
With chicken as the main ingredient, this soup is packed with protein—43.7 g per serving. Chicken is also low in fat, making it a great option for those looking to maintain a healthy weight. Served alongside chicken are carrots, celery, mushrooms, and spinach, all of which are nutrient-dense ingredients that load the dish with essential vitamins and minerals.
Despite being a hearty soup, each serving offers less than 500 calories, leaving room for a salad and a refreshing juice to make a filling 750-calorie lunch.
Furthermore, we kept the amount of salt and butter to a minimum of 6.6 g and 599 mg, respectively. This ensures that this dish complies with the USDA's Dietary Guidelines while still remaining flavorful.
Main Ingredients
Here are the ingredients we use for our chicken noodle soup recipe:
- Chicken Thighs: We recommend using boneless skinless chicken thighs for this recipe because once it’s cooked in the soup, the meat will become succulent and tender while still being incredibly flavorful.
- Aromatics: We sweat diced onions before making the soup to bring out its natural fragrance. At the same time, we add minced garlic and give it a quick stir to mellow its sharp pungent taste.
- Vegetables: Carrots and celery have been among our go-to ingredients when it comes to making soups and broths. In addition, we also put some sliced mushrooms and spinach leaves into the soup for a hint of earthy taste.
- Unsalted butter: We use butter to cook the chicken and vegetables instead of oil. Since this recipe does not contain any other dairy products, using butter will make the soup taste richer.
- Broth: As always, we use unsalted chicken broth. Homemade broth usually gives a deeper and richer taste, but store-bought ones will work just fine.
- Seasonings: Besides the usual salt and freshly cracked black pepper, we figure it would be a nice twist to add Cajun seasoning to spice up our chicken noodle soup.
- Herbs: For this recipe, we use both parsley and coriander. While coriander adds a subtly sweet, almost citrus-like aroma, parsley brings a hint of herby earthiness to the soup. If either of these herbs is not your thing, feel free to leave it out.
- Pasta noodles: As we all know, the world of pasta noodles is so diverse with different shapes and sizes. If you’re struggling to figure out which one works best for your soup, we can give you a few suggestions in the following section.
Best Noodles for Chicken Noodle Soup
Everyone has different tastes and preferences so we wouldn’t dub certain types of pasta and noodles as “the best”. That being said, here are a few top varieties we absolutely adore for a hearty, wholesome bowl of chicken noodle soup:
Pasta
- Fettuccine: This is what we use in today’s chicken noodle soup recipe. This flat and wide pasta is typically great with tomato or creamy sauces (like this Creamy Steak Fettuccine pasta), but that doesn't make it any less delicious in a soup.
- Linguine: Linguine is also a flat pasta, but it’s a lot skinnier than fettuccine. With every al dente bite, the pasta gives a slightly spongy and chewy texture that’s still quite tender. It’s fantastic in pasta dishes, such as this Shrimp Scampi, but would also make a stellar addition to noodle soups.
- Fusilli: This pasta has an interesting twisted shape with lots of crannies — making it the perfect pasta to hold meaty sauces and hearty broth. That being said, it’s a versatile pasta that can also be used in soup, salad, casserole, or even stroganoff.
Noodle
- Egg noodles: This is perhaps one of the most commonly used varieties for noodle soups. The eggs in the dough give the noodles an extra rich and savory flavor. They have a slightly chewy texture that adds a satisfying bite to each spoonful. They work great in soups, as evidenced by our Chicken Noodle Recipe, and also stir-fries, like with this Chicken Stir Fry Noodles Recipe.
- Udon noodles: This is a type of thick and chewy Japanese noodles made from wheat flour, salt, and water. They have a neutral flavor and a soft, doughy texture that is both satisfying and filling. Udon noodles are typically served in soups, stir-fries, and hot pots, and are a staple in Japanese cuisine.
- Soba noodles: These are thin, flat noodles made from buckwheat flour and wheat flour, giving them a nutty taste and tender-yet-firm, chewy texture. When added to noodle soup, they enhance the broth’s flavor and give the dish a gorgeous complexity.
Do You Cook the Chicken and Noodles Before Adding to the Soup?
The chicken will be briefly stir-fried when you start cooking the soup so there's no need to do it ahead of time. You can also use leftover rotisserie chicken and skip the stir-frying step.
We do, however, cook the pasta in unsalted water beforehand.
Follow the package instructions but set the timer for 1 minute less. Once the timer rings, remove the pasta from the water and set it aside. You want your noodles to be slightly undercooked because they will continue to cook in the soup later. If the noodles are well done, they may become too mushy when you put them into the soup.
Storing and Reheating the Leftover
Storing Chicken Noodle Soup
As always, we recommend letting your food cool before putting it in the fridge. You can transfer the soup to small containers instead of leaving it in the pot to make it cool faster. Once cooled, cover the containers with tight-fitting lids.
Avoid putting warm food into an airtight container because it will release steam. The steam will then be trapped and increase the moisture content inside the container, creating an ideal environment for bacteria to grow and spoil your food faster.
Reheating Chicken Noodle Soup
You can reheat your soup in the microwave or over the stovetop. You may need to transfer the soup to a more suitable, microwave-safe container before reheating. Microwave the soup for about 2 minutes and it should be warm enough for you to enjoy.
Alternatively, you can put the soup into a small pot and heat it up. It should take about 5 minutes on medium-low heat, or approximately 2 to 3 minutes over medium heat. We wouldn’t recommend reheating the soup over high heat as it may be too hot and cause the soup to reduce and become a bit saltier.
What to Serve with Chicken Noodle Soup
Since this chicken noodle soup is already flavorful and loaded with vegetables, we suggest keeping things simple and serving it with garlic bread to diversify the overall texture of your main course.
Our simple garlic bread recipe takes only 10 minutes to make from start to finish. You can make it ahead of time and set it aside while you start cooking your main course.
After the main course, we recommend a healthy, refreshing glass of carrot orange ginger juice to cleanse your palate. This juice is quite low in calories but packed with great nutrients so it would be a much better option than going for a sweet dessert.
How to make Chicken Noodle Soup
With tender chunks of chicken, savory vegetables, and perfectly cooked noodles, this chicken noodle soup recipe is the ultimate comfort food that will leave you feeling cozy from the inside out. Whether you're battling a cold or just need some good old-fashioned nourishment, it’s undoubtedly a foolproof choice.
- by Luna Regina, 2024-03-18
- cook TIME 25 mins
- prep TIME 10 mins
- total TIME 35 mins
- COURSE Main couse
- CUISINE American
- SERVINGS servings
- CALORIES 492 kcal
INGREDIENTS
- 24 oz skinless boneless chicken thighs (sliced into large chunks)
- 14 oz fettuccine pasta (cooked)
- 2 oz spinach (leaves only)
- 10 oz carrot (sliced into large chunks)
- 4 oz celery (sliced)
- 2 oz onion (coarsely diced)
- 1 tbsp garlic (finely minced)
- 8 oz mushroom (sliced)
- 2 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp parsley (finely chopped)
- 1/4 cup cilantro (finely chopped)
- 2 cups unsalted chicken broth
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp Cajun seasoning
INSTRUCTIONS
Sauté the aromatics: In a medium pot over medium heat, add 2 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, 1 tbsp garlic, and 2 oz onion. Stir for 2 minutes or until the onions are slightly translucent.
Briefly cook the chicken: In the same pot, add 24 oz skinless boneless chicken thighs. Cook and stir for 3 minutes.
Stir in the vegetables: Add 8 oz mushrooms and 4 oz celery. Cook for another 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the broth and cook the soup: Add 10 oz carrots, 2 cups unsalted chicken broth, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, and 1/2 tsp Cajun seasoning. Bring the pot to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add the noodles: Add 14 oz cooked pasta and 2 oz spinach leaves. Turn the heat up to high and bring the soup to a boil again. Once boiling, give it a quick stir and turn off the heat.
Add 1/4 cup chopped coriander and stir it in.
Garnish and serve: Transfer the soup into a serving bowl and garnish with freshly chopped parsley in each bowl. Serve and enjoy immediately as the soup is at its best quality when it’s still warm.
NUTRITION
Luna Regina
Writer, Author