Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Recipes and Tips for Adding Flavour to Your Soups

Our best homemade chicken noodle soup recipes include recipes for Southeast Asian chicken noodle soups such as the Burmese ohn no khao swe, Chiang Mai’s khao soi gai and Cambodia’s kuy teav sach moan, and my chicken noodle soup with chicken meatballs, along with tips to for adding flavour to your broths while still making quick and easy chicken noodle soups.

If you’ve been online searching for rotisserie chicken soup recipes, don’t worry, I hear you. While I can happily spend an afternoon cooking one of our homemade chicken noodle soup recipes from scratch, including making hand-cut noodles (my idea of fun), I appreciate that not everyone has the inclination or time, especially if you have a family.

Yet we all want to nurse a bowl of comforting chicken noodle soup right now and, unless you’re in bed with Covid, a good old can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup doesn’t really satisfy in the way that a bowl of homemade soup from scratch does.

Some of the best chicken noodle soup recipes begin with a great chicken stock that has simmered for hours, however, not everyone can be on stand-by to keep an eye on a soup on the stove and I’m personally not a lover of the instant pot.

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t want to ‘dump and go’ or ‘set and forget’. I enjoy making soups from scratch, layering ingredients, and I want the ability to taste and adjust the seasoning and spices while my broth is bubbling away. I also love to see, hear and smell my food cooking and inhale the aromas that waft through our home.

If you’re like me but you don’t have an hour or two to hang out in the kitchen, then I have some tips for making the chicken noodle soup recipes below, but making them a little quicker and easier, and some tips for making even more comforting soups.

But before I tell you more about these homemade chicken noodle soup recipes, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-funded. If you’ve cooked our recipes and enjoyed them, please consider supporting Grantourismo by supporting our epic Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon, which you can do for as little as the price of a coffee. Or you could buy us a coffee and we’ll use our coffee money to buy cooking ingredients for recipe testing.

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Lastly, you could browse our Grantourismo store for gifts for food lovers, including food themed reusable cloth face masks designed with Terence’s images. Now let me tell you all about our best chicken noodle soup recipes.

See these warming winter broths for more soup ideas, and if you’re a chicken lover, do peruse our collection of best chicken recipes.

You can also browse our recipe archives (link above), use the search box for a specific recipe, or ask us a question in the comments at the end of any posts. Do bookmark this page as we’ll add more chicken noodle soup recipes here from time to time.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Recipes and Tips for Adding Flavour to Your Soups

Firstly, if you don’t have time to make a chicken stock from scratch, you’re not a fan of stock cubes, and you can’t afford the increasingly ridiculous prices of store-bought stocks thanks to inflation, try a little extra seasoning, spices and/or condiments.

Start with an extra teaspoon of salt and white pepper for European soups or a tablespoon of fish sauce or soy sauce to Asian soups. Spices such as ground paprika and chilli flakes give a dish warmth, but not necessarily heat if used in moderation.

A glug of extra virgin olive oil added to European soups and chilli oil to Asian soups works wonders – as does coconut cream instead of coconut milk to Southeast Asian soups, and cream or sour cream to European soups. A squeeze of lemon or lime and sprinkle of fresh fragrant herbs add a delightful tang and perfume.

Chicken doesn’t take that long to cook in a soup, especially if you turn the heat to high. But if you’re really counting minutes, poach some chicken breasts a day ahead and shred them while the soup is simmering, or grab a rotisserie chicken on the way home and pop the pieces in whole or pull the meat from the bone and stir in 10 minutes before serving.

Just make sure to keep those chicken bones – you can always freeze the carcass – for that weekend afternoon when you do have time to make a chicken soup stock from scratch.

Classic Cambodian Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe for Kuy Teav

This traditional Cambodian chicken noodle soup recipe makes kuy teav sach moan, one of Cambodia’s most popular breakfast noodle soups. We use succulent poached chicken breasts, which are shredded, but you could also use other chicken parts. It’s another one of our best chicken noodle soup recipes and one of my favourites.

This chicken soup is in the restrained style you’d typically find in a simple local eatery or market or street food stall in Cambodia. A good clear flavourful stock is the hallmark of this soup rather than a bowl abundant with ingredients, so my best tip to making this classic Cambodian kuy teav recipe is to have a good chicken stock on hand.

I’m lucky to be married to a man who almost always has stock ready to use. When Terence needs chicken stock for a dish, he’ll make a big batch and we’ll split it up re-sealable plastic bags or plastic containers and freeze the stuff. We provide tips in the recipe below for making chicken stock at home.

Classic Cambodian Kuy Teav Recipe for Cambodia’s Favourite Chicken Noodle Soup

Burmese Coconut Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe for Ohn No Khao Swe

This ohn no khao swe recipe for Myanmar’s Burmese chicken coconut noodle soup is another of our best chicken noodle soup recipes and one of the most popular chicken soup recipes on the site.

Ohn no khao swe consists of egg noodles in an aromatic chicken soup with a coconut milk base, chicken drumsticks (although you could use chicken breasts if you prefer), garnished with crunchy fried noodles, boiled eggs, shallots, fried garlic, dried chilli, lime, coriander (cilantro), and sometimes fried chickpea fritters.

Generally considered to be a street food dish, offered by roving vendors and available from markets and roadside stalls, you’ll also see it on menus everywhere from simple family-ran eateries and cafés to hotel restaurants and shopping mall food courts. Make sure to order it – and make it.

Terence’s rendition combines the best of the many bowls we slurped on our travels, starting with the first ohn no khao swe we savoured at Yangon’s grand old hotel, The Strand.

Ohn No Khao Swe Recipe for Burmese Chicken Coconut Noodle Soup

Chiang Mai Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe for Khao Soi Gai

This curried chicken noodle soup recipe makes the delicious Chiang Mai khao soi gai that is as beloved by culinary travellers to the Northern Thailand city, as much as it is loved by locals.

Khao soi gai is a one-bowl meal of egg noodles, a rich, oily coconut cream-infused stock, and a leg or thigh of bone-in chicken (‘gai’ is Thai for chicken) topped with crunchy noodles.

Slurped at market stalls, simple eateries and fancy restaurants, khao soi gai is perhaps the best known of the wonderful Northern Thai-style Lanna specialties and quickly becomes addictive. We’ve based whole trips to Chiang Mai in the past on seeking out the best bowls of khao soi.

It’s a lunchtime favourite across Chiang Mai and it’s so popular that I reckon that when Chiang Mai locals meet, instead of asking each other the customary “have you eaten rice today?” to mean “have you eaten yet?” they probably ask “have you eaten khao soi gai yet?” It’s easily another one of the best chicken noodle soup recipes.

Khao Soi Gai Recipe – How to Make Chiang Mai Curry Noodle Chicken Soup 

Indonesian Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe for Yogyakarta’s Soto Ayam

Our soto ayam recipe for one of Indonesia’s favourite chicken noodle soups is based on the fragrant breakfast noodle soup we fell in love with on our last day in Yogyakarta on the Indonesian island of Java, and it’s another of our best chicken noodle soup recipes.

We’d travelled to Java to explore the spectacular sites of Borobudur and Prambanan, but became just as enamoured with the food. We’d noticed signs for soto ayam on rickety old food carts all over the city, but it wasn’t until our last morning that we had time to taste Yogyakarta’s take on soto ayam.

Soto’ means soup and ‘ayam’ is chicken and this Indonesian chicken soup with noodles is the go-to street food breakfast for many locals across the country and there are countless variations.

Soto ayam is essentially an aromatic chicken broth with rice noodles, garnishes and condiments, and while there are countless versions, the Yogyakarta cook’s soto ayam that we loved stood out for the consommé-like clarity of the light soup and aromas from the stock.

Soto Ayam Recipe for Yogyakarta’s Indonesian Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul

Chicken and Mushroom Noodle Soup Recipe with Handmade Pasta

This comforting mushroom noodle soup recipe with handmade pasta called ‘lapsha’ makes a centuries-old Russian vegetarian soup to which you can add shredded poached chicken or pull apart a rotisserie chicken.

This centuries-old Russian vegetarian soup was traditionally eaten during the Orthodox Great Lent, which begins after Pancake Week or Maslenitsa and runs until Easter. This delicious broth provided so much nourishment that the forbidden meat, eggs and sour cream wouldn’t have been missed.

While this soup is wonderful with the hand-cut noodles to make a quick and easy version, just use store-bought dried noodles or even spaghetti or another type of pasta. Sprinkle with fresh fragrant dill and add a dollop of sour cream.

Mushroom Noodle Soup Recipe with Handmade Pasta for a Centuries Old Russian Vegetarian Soup

 

Russian Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe with Chicken Meatballs

Our Russian chicken noodle soup recipe with chicken meatballs makes another one of my Russian family recipes, my late grandmother’s chicken noodle soup – with a few tweaks. It’s an old-fashioned chicken noodle soup, which means it’s a comforting chicken noodle soup.

This chicken noodle soup recipe is also an easy soup to make, coming together quickly, in just 30 minutes or so.  The juicy chicken meatballs cook in the soup so there’s no stock to make, the flavour coming from the meatballs and subtle use of spice.

The flavours are well balanced, but if you want even more punch, you could add a little paprika to the chicken meatballs, or a sprinkle of chilli flakes to the broth to give it a little kick.

That’s not such a Russian thing to do, but plenty of fresh fragrant dill, a dollop of sour cream, and a dish of dill pickles and slices of dark rye bread on the side, will well and truly ensure this Russian chicken noodle soup recipe doesn’t lose its identity.

Russian Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe with Chicken Meatballs for a Comforting Old-Fashioned Soup

Please do let us know if you make any of our chicken noodle soup recipes in the comments below, as we’d love to know how they turn out for you.