Coconut Curry Chicken Noodle Soup

There are so many reasons why I love soup. They can be quick, easy, delicious, creative or restorative. You name it, soup can be whatever you like. You can whip one up in literally 10-15 minutes or you can take hours and develop deep, delicious flavours. No matter what route you choose it will surely be 100 times better than anything you find in a can or package.

I chose to make my own stock for this recipe, because I had the time and a whole chicken. However, if you only have 15 minutes and a pack of chicken breasts or some left over chicken you could easily make this soup and it would be just as delicious. The only difference is you wouldn’t get all of the benefits from the bone broth.

Keep in mind this is a very flexible recipe. Use whatever veggies you have on hand, or if you just want to make enough for a quick bowl of soup for lunch cut everything by about a quarter. Also, I used a yellow curry paste, but you could always substitute green or red.

Coconut Curry Chicken Soup – makes about 3L, 3 hours or 15 minutes

For the broth: Or Substitute a 1L carton of a good quality chicken broth, or Better Than Bouillon Chicken Paste mixed with water.

• whole chicken- cut into parts, remove legs, backbone, wings, leave breasts attached
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 onion, quartered
• 1/2 head of garlic, cut in half
• 5 lime leaves (optional)
• 2″ piece of ginger sliced
• 1 lemongrass stick(optional)
• 1 tsp salt & pepper

Place everything in a large pot and fill with water until just covered. Bring to a boil and then immediately turn down to medium heat, or a medium to light boil. Cook for about an hour. I usually skim the froth from the top at least once. Remove chicken pieces and let them cool for 15 minutes, so you can remove the chicken from the bone. Once you removed the chicken add the bones back to the broth and continue cooking for another 1-3 hours, on medium heat. You may need to add a bit more water, if the bones aren’t covered. Put some plastic wrap on the chicken and refrigerate. When you are done cooking the bones remove from heat and strain.

Substitute: If you are using a pre-made chicken broth just add it in place of the homemade broth and add your diced raw chicken in with the cauliflower and carrots to cook. OR, save yourself more time and add rotisserie chicken at the end.

For the soup:

• 3 carrots, chopped
• 2 cans coconut milk
• 1 small jar of yellow Thai Kitchen curry paste
• 1/2 large cauliflower, chopped into small florets
• 4-6 mini bok choy, sliced
• rice noodles (I used only a small pack for myself)
• 1/2 cilantro, chopped
• lime, juiced

Wipe out the pot you used from the broth with a paper towel, just to get out any large pieces. On medium heat add the jar of curry paste and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the coconut milk and stir till smooth. Then add the broth, carrots and cauliflower. While that is simmering, start another pot of water boiling for the rice noodles. Start tearing apart your chicken and chopping the cilantro. Add rice noodles when the water boils. I like to add the bok choy to the noodles for the last minute of cooking so they don’t end up over cooking in the soup. Once you drain the noodles and bok choy, rinse with cold water and set aside. When the carrots and cauliflower are done cooking turn off the heat. Add the cilantro and lime juice. Check your seasoning. I added about 2 cups of water and 1 tsp more salt, depending on how much your soup reduced from simmering. In a large bowl place some noodles, bok choy and chicken. Ladel over the broth with veggies. Enjoy!

Note: When I made this it was just for myself, so I ended up freezing the rest. I wouldn’t recommend freezing the soup with the noodles though, they will get too soggy when you reheat it.

Also, if are making enough for only on person, just cook the noodles in the soup and through in the bok choy 1 minute before the noodles are done.