Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup with Noodles

This is my homemade version of Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup with noodles. It’s quick and easy, and the taste is completely different to the instant kind!

Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup with Noodles

I often get recipe ideas just by wandering the grocery store aisles, seeing what everyone is buying. Come winter, Australians stack their trolleys with ready-made Lasagna, Cottage Pie and pasta bakes, and the aisle serving cups of soup suddenly gets more visitors too. Cream of Chicken Soup, Cream of Chicken Noodle Soup, and Mushroom Soup are widely available on the market.

So did Chicken and Sweet Corn Noodle Soup, and I realized – wait a minute, I don’t have the recipe. I think I’d better fix it!

So, here it is. It’s creamy with hints of chicken, lots of sweet corn flavor, and a paste that fits perfectly on your soup spoon. It goes without saying that it leaves packets of powdered soup in the dust. 🙂

Ingredients for Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup with Noodles

I love how this soup thickens without flour or cornstarch/cornstarch. Instead, it relies on starch from pasta, creamed corn, and a handful of cheese! I also added a few handfuls of the green stuff to the soup, just because I could and a cup of soup wouldn’t. 😉

Two types of corn – This soup uses creamed corn and corn kernels. Cream of corn is part of the soup stock, adding flavor, a corny sweetness and also thickening it slightly. Feel free to substitute corn kernels for frozen fresh corn kernels if you prefer (2 cups).
Chicken stock/broth – I tried using water instead of stock but found that the soup didn’t have enough liquid. It’s better to use chicken stock! My standard is to use low sodium because it allows me to control the amount of salt I add to the dish, which varies depending on the other ingredients I use. 🙂
Milk – This is what gives the soup its creamy color. You can use any type of milk you want, dairy or non-dairy, and whatever fat percentage you want (my default is low fat because that’s what I drink)/
Chicken breast – I used about 400g/14oz chicken for this soup although you could easily use more if you wanted to increase the protein. The chicken I ate while filming and taking these photos was very large – about 380g/13oz – so I only used one. You can also use thigh fillets.
Broken angel hair paste – These fine little pieces of pasta cook in a flash (3 minutes!) and I also love them because they remind me of the little pieces of pasta in soup packets. They are so small they fit in a teaspoon!

Other pasta – Feel free to use other small pastas – rizoni/orzo, star shapes, small macaroni, alphabet, dinosaur shapes (no judgment from me, even if there is no one under 10 in your house). If using a slightly larger pasta such as ditalini, small shells, this will absorb more liquid, so just add a little water to the stock, otherwise your soup will be quite thick.
A handful of cheese (optional) – Late addition, but once I did it, there was no turning back. 😊 This adds extra oomph and also thickens the broth a bit. But that’s completely optional!
Green ingredients (kale!) – I also like to add a big handful of kale, just to add a little green flavor to the soup and also because it adds a little color. I use kale because there is always a lot of kale hanging around in my fridge, although a little spinach, amaranth, silver beet/chard would also work. Additionally, you can always chop some vegetables and saute them with onions (carrots, celery, zucchini, capsicum/paprika are all options to choose from).

How to make Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup with Noodles

I like to sear the chicken first, which not only leaves a savory brown color on the bottom of the pot which makes our soup even tastier (called like!), I also find it easier to cut it into smaller pieces compared to handling slippery raw chicken. We’ll put it back in the pan later, so there’s no need to cook it thoroughly at this stage. In fact, you don’t want the soup to be fully cooked, otherwise it will be overcooked when it’s ready!

Grill the chicken – Split the chicken in half horizontally and sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. Then grill in the pan for about 1 1/2 minutes on each side, until the surface is golden. It doesn’t need to be cooked until cooked because we will put it back into the soup.
Cut the chicken – Remove the chicken then when it is cool enough to handle, cut it into small pieces. I do this while waiting for the stock to boil (step 4 below).

Sauté onions and garlic in the same pan, reducing the heat as necessary to ensure the golden brown layer on the bottom does not burn.
Soup stock – Add cream corn, corn, milk and chicken stock (use empty cans to measure, you need 2 cans each), plus salt and pepper. Stir well and let it boil.

Cook pasta and chicken – Once the stock starts to bubble, add the pasta and chopped chicken, plus all the chicken liquid onto a cutting board. Boil for 3 minutes, or however long the pasta needs to cook (the shredded angel hair pasta I used was only 3 minutes). Stir occasionally.
Cheese and kale – Add cheese, stir until melted. Then add the kale and stir until wilted, it only takes 20 seconds. Then serve!

Like all pasta soups, the pasta will continue to absorb liquid and soften as it sits in the broth, so it’s best enjoyed straight away. If you plan to store leftovers, I would drain or scoop out all the ingredients (pasta, chicken and all), and store the stock separately if practical. If not, at least let the soup and noodles cool separately before combining them back into the container. Pasta absorbs less liquid as it cools so it doesn’t puff up as much.

Hope you enjoy it! -Nagi x

Televisionhispana

Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup with Noodles