I need noodle soup!

[swan_tower]

There is a sad lack of noodle soup in my cooking repertoire. What recipes do you guys recommend? The main requirement is that it be non-spicy, in the peppers/chili sense; other things are easy to leave out (cilantro) or substitute (eggplant for squash).

Comments

[pameladean]

I've got a tofu miso vegetable soup that I made up, but I could invent some quantities and write it down if you liked. I would imagine that one could easily sub in cooked chicken or another meat or meats for the tofu. The soup itself isn't hot, though most of us put chili oil on it before eating it. It does have hefty amounts of ginger and garlic.

My one real piece of advice about noodle soups is that except for something like minestrone, which might have a cup or so of dry elbow macaroni added near the end of cooking and left in any leftover soup, it's advisable to make the noodles separately and let people put some in their bowls and ladle hot soup on top. Noodles left in the soup slurp up all the liquid so that, depending on what the noodles are made of, you either get a pasta dish instead of soup, or the noodles fall apart and you get sludge.

P.

[swan_tower]

I would love some invented quantities, if it's not too much trouble!

And yeah, I think that the noodles would mostly go in toward the end, or else be cooked separately -- whatever best facilitates their cooking time.

[rosefox]

Any specifications beyond "it's a soup that contains a noodle"? Would butternut squash ravioli in butternut squash soup count, for example? I put pasta in soup a lot, but not usually long noodles.

[watersword]

If tiny pastas are acceptable, Italian wedding soup is a personal favorite.

[swan_tower]

I usually think long noodles when I say noodle soup. I've already got a tortellini soup I make, for example. Having said that, butternut squash ravioli in butternut squash soup sounds amazing . . . for those nights when my husband isn't around, because he's allergic to squash. :-) And while I routinely sub in eggplant where recipes call for zucchini, in that instance the entire dish would have to be replaced!

[swan_tower]

I was thinking long noodles, but I'll definitely give that a look! In that example, it's mostly a question of whether I can be bothered to make meatballs. >_>

[sholio]

One of my go-to lunches when I'm just cooking for myself is a sort of homebrew version of various Asian noodle soups. Exactly what goes in it depends on what ingredients I have on hand, but generally I use chicken broth or chicken bouillon, boil a small amount of spaghetti or other long noodles in it, and throw in whatever protein and vegetables I have on hand (e.g. canned chicken and a handful of spinach or cut-up kale or chard, added near the end). And something crunchy on top is nice, like chopped green onions or a little shaved cabbage. It's something I've really only ever made for myself, though, not as a meal to feed more than one person, though I expect it would probably scale.

[sovay]

There is a sad lack of noodle soup in my cooking repertoire. What recipes do you guys recommend?

I don't actually make or eat many noodle soups, but I do consider egg noodles in chicken soup to be an acceptable variation of comfort food, and I am sure that could be profitably extended into a whole range of soups depending on what you added to it that wasn't noodles and chicken. Carrots, for example, and possibly sliced soft-boiled eggs instead of egg drop.

[starlady]

+1 on putting egg noodles in your chicken soup, that's how I grew up eating it. (Heat them separately, add them in for five-ish minutes on low to heat through and blend flavors at the end, store noodles separately for leftovers purposes.)

It's been a while since I made this, but I'm a huge fan of this coconut curry chicken noodle soup. In your case you can obviously omit the cilantro; to make it non-spicy I'd omit the sambal/red curry paste and make sure to use a mild (i.e. non-specific or Japanese) curry powder.

[pameladean]

It's trouble I want to go to anyway so I don't have to reinvent the soup repeatedly. I'll do it either later tonight or tomorrow. P.

[rosefox]

It's extremely easy with soup from a can! Amy's is my preferred brand. Recipe here, such as it is.

[mrissa]

This is one of those things that, as a few people above have said, I mostly do without a recipe. I throw in some chicken I happen to have--extra chicken breast or shredded leftover rotisserie chicken or whatever--and some carrots and peapods and a few thin-sliced radishes, not too many or the whole thing will taste entirely of radishes, and I cook them with garlic and ginger and five-spice, and then I simmer them in broth, and then I slop some cooked rice noodles in and let the family squeeze limes on it, and voila, it's a gluten-free soup that the godkids will reliably eat. You can put cilantro on the end if you like that. You can do it with a different spiceway if you like that instead, and egg noodles if you don't mind the gluten. I expect it wouldn't have to be chicken if you were feeding vegetarians.

I am quite partial to Better Than Bouillon for this sort of purpose, I really do find it better if you don't have homemade stock to hand.

[varidog]

A soup is really just a base (the broth) and what's in it. That's where leftovers go. Don't underestimate simple.

When I was a bachelor, I used to frequently make soup. I used to use the most improbable mix of vegetables and I rarely wound up with anything inedible. Soup is amazingly resilient.

For broth, I prefer Better Than Bullion, any flavor.

Plain chicken is dirt easy. Broth, plus celery and carrots, and simmer to death. Pour over noodles and chicken (optional), and done. It's mostly brain dead. (Cooking chicken in the broth has the contradictory result in drying out the chicken.) If you want that store-bought texture, you overcook the noodles in the broth. (=Comfort food.)

Congee is also brain-dead. Depending on how much water you add, you can get rice porridge or rice soup. There's an entire East Asian culture built around congee for breakfast. Different rices produce different textures.

For potato soup, use yukon gold potatoes. That's it. They're amazingly delicious as soup. Chop into small pieces, boil a lot, stir a bit, and done. Use whatever broth you prefer.

[pameladean]

Here it is:

TOFU VEGETABLE MISO SOUP


Serves 4

8 to 12 ounces of soba noodles, rice vermicelli, flat rice noodles, or spaghetti
1 14- or 16-oz block of extra-firm tofu, cut into ½-inch cubes

4 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and either minced or just smashed
2 inches of ginger root, peeled and minced or else scrubbed and cut into slices
1 onion, finely sliced

6 to 8 cups of good broth. I use Better Than Bouillon No Chicken, but a boxed broth from the supermarket or a homemade chicken or vegetable broth or the equivalent in bouillon cubes are all fine

2 carrots, sliced into thin disks
1 red bell papper cut into cubes (more or less)
A head of broccoli divided into bite-sized pieces
6 to 8 oz button, crimini, portabella, or shiitake mushrooms, sliced or quartered
6 to 8 oz snow peas, cut in half
1 bunch scallions, white parts sliced thinly and green parts cut into pieces around an inch or an inch and a half long.
¼ to ½ cup white, yellow, or red miso; how much will depend on how salty your broth is and how salty the miso is

Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Rice vinegar

If you like tofu just tossed into the broth and cooked in it, skip this step. If you like your tofu crisper and have the time, you can do this:

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Toss diced tofu, 1 T sesame oil, and 1 T soy sauce until tofu is coated. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray or put a piece of parchment paper on it, and place tofu on cookie sheet in a single layer. Bake 10 minutes. Stir. Bake 10 minutes more. Stir one more time in the last 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside. This recipe called for 1 T of sriracha as well, but you can just leave it out.

Cook the noodles according to the directions on the package, drain, rinse with cold water, and put back into their pan or a bowl. Toss them with a half tablespoon or so of sesame oil.

Put as little oil of any kind as you think you can get away with into the bottom of the pot you want to make the soup in, and saute the onion, ginger, and garlic until the onion goes translucent. Add the mushrooms and saute until they start releasing their liquid. You can also steam-fry these ingredients or just add them to the broth first and let them simmer before putting in the vegetables, but I like it better when they’re cooked in a little oil first.

Pour in the broth and bring it to a simmer. If you didn’t bake the tofu, put it in now. Otherwise, add the carrots and broccoli and cook until they are almost as tender as you like them. Add the bell pepper and simmer that for a few minutes. Add the snow peas and scallions and let them simmer until the peas are bright green but still crisp. If you like your vegetables softer, simmer things longer.

Taste the soup. I usually end up putting in about a tablespoon each of soy sauce and rice vinegar, but you can let people add those at the table, or leave them out if you don’t like rice vinegar or feel the broth is salty enough. I also usually put in more sesame oil, but many people feel that the amount already used, especially if they baked the tofu, is enough.

Scoop out a cupful of the broth and mix a tablespoon of the miso into it. When the miso is dissolved, put the cupful back into the pot and stir it around. Taste, and add more miso by the tablespoon until you like the saltiness level. Try not to let the soup boil after you start putting the miso in.

To eat, put some noodles in your bowl, and some baked tofu if you baked it. Ladle broth and vegetables over all ,and have dinner.

You can add rice vinegar or more sesame oil, or more soy sauce if you don’t like the salt level after the noodles and tofu are in the equation. You can also add fish sauce if you like it and want a more complex flavor.

This soup is good with egg rolls or shrimp shu mai or spring rolls or other little appetizers, but it’s fine on its own as well.

[carbonel]

I go through phases of making chicken noodle soup, but it's so simple that I'm not sure the term "recipe" dignifies it. It's mostly a family recipe, except that the tradition recipe starts with a raw chicken, and I don't. So there was some help from Google to adapt it.

1. Buy a rotisserie chicken. Strip off the skin and most of the meat. (The soup is a by-product. Usually I'm buying the chicken because I want the meat.)

2. Simmer the carcass for a few hours along with a cup or so of mirepoix (carrot-onion-celery mix), salt and pepper, and (optional) some garlic. Trader Joe's and Cub sell mirepoix already cut up, but it's easy enough to make your own. But as a person who lives alone, paying the premium for the cut-up stuff is a win over having dying leftovers in the fridge. I usual

3. Strain the stock, discarding all the stuff left behind. This is chicken stock. You can use it right away, keep it for a week or so in the fridge, or freeze it, where it keeps pretty much indefinitely.

4. Now you're ready to make your actual chicken soup. Put the stock in a pan, and add chicken shreds (or chunks or however you like it) and some more mirepoix, plus anything else you think you might like. Simmer for half an hour or so. The goal is to cook enough to mix the flavors (and cook the veggies) but not to cook it dead.

4a. While the soup is simmering, cook as many noodles as you need for this batch of soup. For a meal, I use an ounce per person. I like the old-fashioned style noodles or wide egg noodles, but tastes vary.

5. When the soup and noodles are both done, strain the noodles and toss them in the soup. Eat and enjoy.

[carbonel]

Also, for what it's worth, when I was young and broke, I used to make hot and sour ramen, which was hot and filling and tasty, but didn't have much nutritive value.

I made a standard packet of chicken-flavor ramen, using about half the flavor packet, because the full packet made it too salty. To that, I added about a tablespoon of vinegar, a teaspoon of sugar, a splash of hot oil, and a dribble of sesame oil. Plus some leftover protein if I had some, but I usually didn't.

I haven't had it for years, but it got me through some tough times without feeling too deprived. And it would be easy to adapt to something healthier.