Spicy Chicken Soup

Jenny is in perpetual search for easy, weeknight recipes to attempt to feed her family. When they balk, she just eats more.

When you can see your breath inside your car in the morning, it’s officially soup weather. So how about one that is also a full meal, especially if paired with some nice bread, or in the case of Mexican Chicken Noodle Soup a tortilla or two? 

What you’ve got here is a chicken noodle soup spiced up and given a pinch of excitement that may or may not cause people to look up from their electronic devices during dinner, if said family members were permitted to bring such devices to the table, which they are not, so I will never know. 

But listen up: all you are doing is opening cans of stuff while your onion and veggies sauté in your pan, then quickly adding in your tomatoes and the like as things begin to cook up. Onions in the pan filling your kitchen with the smell of impending dinner? Good. Next comes your chicken, which cooks while you juice some limes, dig out your spices and maybe find a way to gently break it to your 4th grader, after examining her native American project, that you don’t think the Kiowa tribes wore “leggings.”

The noodles and spices come last. 

Two weeknight cheats from your favorite almost-out-her-mind-working-mom friend: instead of that jalapeno pepper, you can use fire roasted tomatoes that have plenty of heat. I keep several cans of the Trader Joe’s variety on hand at all times. Also, that chicken shredding thing is great for authenticity, but you can skip it. As for cilantro, that’s between you and your (kitchen) God. 

Mexican Chicken Noodle Soup by jessie schupack

Serves 6

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 white onion chopped
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrot
6 garlic cloves finely chopped
1 pound skinless chicken breast
6 cups chicken stock
2 14 ounces cans of roasted tomatoes
2 cups vermicelli noodles / or angel hair pasta broken into small pieces
1 jalapeno pepper (remove seeds) and mince
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon salt to taste
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 cup fresh cilantro roughly chopped
6 limes juiced

See the full recipe (and save it and print it) here.

Photo by James Ransom