recipe of the week: asian chicken noodle soup

i stumbled across this recipe a few weeks ago and knew that i wanted to make it. i love asian soups (or food) in general, and a twist on chicken noodle soup sounded fantastic!  i changed a couple of things, but most is fairly close to the original.


asian chicken noodle soup
(serves 5ish; takes 30 minutes)


2 tablespoons sesame oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons ginger, peeled & grated
2.5 cups pre-cooked, shredded chicken breast*
1 teaspoon chili sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
2 tablespoons of lime juice
scallions and cilantro to taste
55 g rice noodles**


*when i have a recipe that calls for shredded chicken, i cook it with olive oil in my grill pan and then shred it with my stand mixer (dough blade).  most pre-packaged chicken is full of added sugar and chemicals and i find that it's cheaper and healthier to just buy chicken breasts and go through the extra step.  seriously, it takes 10 minutes.  :-) i cook it while i'm gathering the rest of the ingredients.
**my husband didn't like the texture of the rice noodles, and i could take or leave it.  next time i'll be trying it with udon or lo mein noodles for a thicker noodle texture.


heat oil in pan over high heat
add garlic and ginger and saute for 2 minutes
add chicken, chili sauce, fish sauce and soy sauce.  

cook for 2 minutes and then add the chicken stock and water.

bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.  while this is happening, place the noodles in a bowl and pour boiling water over them until they are covered.  let them sit the 10 minutes or so you are simmering the soup.
remove soup from heat and add lime juice, scallions and cilantro.

divide the noodles evenly into bowls and ladle soup over them.

according to the original recipe, this serves 4 people.  however, those portions seem huge to me.  we easily got 5 servings of soup out of this.  however, based on the serving size the original recipe called for, this soup contains 246 calories per serving.

 (screen shot from my fitness pal app, where i loaded every ingredient i used into the recipe.)


clearly this isn't a stand-alone dinner, but we added edamame and asian dumplings from trader joe's into the mix, so we were good.


i will also add that if you're expecting a soup that is full of flavor-punch, this isn't the one. :-)  i did add some sriracha to mine and that made it perfection for me, but if you don't like added heat you may want to bump up the ginger and garlic and even add an onion or two.