This bowl of noodle soup screams warmth and flavor, all while keeping it budget friendly.
Eating Healthy On a Budget
My current series “Eating Healthy On a Budget” is about sharing meals that you can make with ingredients costing under 2€. This series is especially designed for students and busy people who do not want to spend too much money or time to make meals, but still want to eat healthy. I have tried, tested, calculated and have come up with four recipes that I will be sharing on Fridays. All the recipes from the series use only ingredients from discount grocery stores (I got mine from Aldi) except chicken (because I use halal from Turkish store).
About Today’s Recipe
You would know my love for soups if you scroll through the number of recipes for soups that I have here on my website. Chicken soup comes at the top, as evident from my signature chicken soup recipe which is a hot favourite among my audience. Today’s chicken noodle soup is different from my signature one though. It has a clear broth and of course contain noodles (in form of whole grain spaghetti here). I absolutely love the addition of chili-garlic oil which takes the soup to the next level. It adds a nice aromatic kick from the chili and garlic while also adding a crunch from the fried garlic in the chili oil. This recipe is warmth and flavour in a bowl.
Can This Soup Be Made With Any Other Cut Of Chicken?
I chose chicken wings for this recipe because of a number of reasons. They are cheaper as compared to other cuts, making this recipe budget friendly. Chicken wings are ideal to be used for making a flavourful and rich broth because they have bones and some amount of fat, all adding flavour and depth to the soup.
If you do not want to use chicken wings, you could use chicken legs instead. Do not use boneless chicken because it would not give the depth of flavour that we want.
Can Skinless Chicken Be Used For This Recipe?
I would highly recommend keeping the skin on for making the broth. It adds a lot of flavour to it. Once the broth is cooked, you can take off the skin and discard it while shredding the chicken.
Can This Recipe Be Made Ahead Of Time?
For best results I would recommend preparing the broth ahead of time and adding the noodles when you want to consume the chicken noodle soup. It will only take about 10 minutes to cook the noodles if your broth is ready.
But if you want to cook it completely and then store it, it’s also not a problem. Be aware that the noodles will absorb the broth overtime and you may have to add some water to it. You can store it for up to 2 days in the fridge.
Ingredients with Cost Breakdown
Watch the video instructions to easily follow the recipe
Chicken Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 7 cloves (50 grams) garlic
- a bunch (200 grams) spring onion
- 2 medium (150 grams) carrots
- 4 Tbsp (60 ml) olive oil
- 2 tsp (5 grams) spicy paprika powder (scharf Paprika,gemahlen)
- 400 grams chicken wings (skin on)
- 2 tsp (5 grams) salt
- ½ tsp (2.5 grams) freshly crushed black pepper
- 2 liter water
- 150 grams whole grain spaghetti (Vollkorn-Spaghetti)
Instructions
- Peel and chop the garlic finely. Thoroughly wash the spring onion and slice it thinly. Separate the white and green parts. Dice the carrot in small pieces.
- Put a heave bottom pot on medium heat and add the olive oil. While the oil is still cold, add the chopped garlic. Stir it continuously and let it turn golden brown (not dark brown otherwise it will turn bitter).
- Once the garlic is golden brown add the paprika powder and stir to infuse the oil with it. Leave it into the oil for a minute and your chili-oil is ready.
- Transfer three-fourth of the chili-oil into a bowl, reserving one-fourth into the pot. Put the pot back to medium heat and let the pot heat up.
- Once the pot is hot, add the chicken wings and place it into a single layer touching the bottom of the pan. Leave it to develop a golden color without moving it. It will take about 2 minutes. Then flip and repeat on the other side as well. Once the chicken wings have developed a golden color on both sides, take them out of the pan. We are not cooking them yet, only bringing some color to it.
- The pot remains on medium heat. Add the spring onion whites into the pot (reserve the greens for later). Scratch the bottom of the pot to release the browned bits. It will add a lot of flavour to our broth. If you aren’t able to get off the brown bits, add some splashe of water to help you with it. Sauté for a minute.
- Add the diced carrots along with salt and pepper. Stir and cook for about 3 minutes. Adding ingredients step by step, incorporate layers of flavours into our soup.
- Add the chicken wings (along with any water that it might have released), and the 2 litres of water. Bring it to a boil.
- Simmer and cover with a lid. Let it cook for about 20 minutes (or until the chicken it completely tender).
- Once the chicken is cooked, take the pieces out from the pot and let it cool down. Turn the heat to medium now and let it come to a boil.
- Once boiling, add the whole grain spaghetti and let it cook according to packet instructions (mine took 8 minutes). Once cooked turn off heat.
- Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, shred it with your hands.Remove the bones and if you want to discard the skin, you can do that at this point too.
- For serving take a deep bowl and add the spaghetti on the bottom. Pour broth to fill the bowl. Top with some shredded chicken, spring onion greens (reserved earlier) and some chili oil. Serve hot and enjoy!
Notes
- If you do not want to use chicken wings, you could use chicken legs instead. Do not use boneless chicken because it would not give the depth of flavour that we want.
- I would highly recommend keeping the skin on for making the broth. It adds a lot of flavour to it. Once the broth is cooked, you can take off the skin and discard it while shredding the chicken.
- If you want to prepare this recipe for meal prep, I would recommend preparing the broth ahead of time and adding the noodles when you want to consume the chicken noodle soup. It will only take about 10 minutes to cook the noodles if your broth is ready.