Chinese Noodle Soup is incredibly quick and easy – if you know the secret seasonings! You’d swear the Asian soup broth is from a Chinese restaurant, it’s that good. 10 minutes and just 352 calories for a big bowl. Use any noodles, any vegetables, any protein – or not! It’s terrific fridge-forage food.
This is a reader-favourite recipe included by popular demand in my debut cookbook “Dinner”!
Fast Chinese Noodle Soup!
This Chinese Noodle Soup is one of my classic “back pocket” recipes because it’s so versatile and incredibly quick. Because people who cook all day for a living need quick dinners for real life – ask any chef!!
Here’s a run down of how it goes:
Broth: Plonk and simmer 6 ingredients for 10 minutes (no trip to the Asian store required!);
Noodles: Prepare fresh OR dried noodles according to packet directions;
Toppings: Rummage in fridge and locate vegetables & proteins of choice. Chop roughly and cook with the noodles or in the soup. broth; and
Serve: Place noodles in bowls. Pour over soup and toppings.
See? 10 minutes!
Seasonings for Chinese soup broths
If you’ve ever been disappointed by a recipe for an Asian soup broth before, it’s probably because it was missing basic but essential flavourings. It takes more than just chicken broth and soy sauce to make a Chinese soup broth!
Here’s what all you need:
Chinese cooking wine – the key ingredient. Just 1.5 tablespoons adds complexity and depth of flavour to the store bought chicken stock. Without it, the broth will taste “flat” ie missing something. Substitute with: dry sherry, mirin or cooking sake. Best non alcoholic sub for this recipe: substituting some of the soy sauce with oyster sauce (which adds extra “umami” into the broth to compensate);
Garlic and ginger – smash the garlic and slice the ginger to allow the fresh flavours to infuse into the broth. Keeping them whole makes it easy to pick out later – you could very well grate them straight into the broth using a fine grater, but you will get little bits in the soup (rather than being a clear broth);
Sesame oil – for the flavour!
Chicken broth/stock – use low sodium otherwise the broth may be a touch too salty for your taste. Use a decent one, because it’s the foundation of the soup broth (🇦🇺 I use Campbells. Better than Continental). Best option if you have it: homemade chicken stock!;
Soy sauce – either all purpose or light soy sauce will work here. Don’t use dark soy sauce or sweet soy sauce – the flavour of these are too intense; and
Sugar – just a touch, to balance out the flavours.
What goes in the noodle soup
And here’s what I put in the soup:
Noodles – Chinese noodle soups are traditionally made with thin egg noodles (pictured above, and below in the soup). Fresh ones (sold in the fridge section) have a better texture than dried. But any noodles will be fine here – fresh or dried, rice noodles, white or yellow noodles, Hokkien, Singapore noodles, wide, thin, vermicelli, ramen noodles (yup!), diet noodles (like konyaku – been there, done that), zoodles (been there too). Really. ANY noodles will be great in this broth!
Bok Choy (also known as buk choi, buk choi, pak choi, or pok choi – crazy right??!) – or any vegetables. I like bok choy because you just split them in half down the middle and bam! You’re done! (Recipe notes includes an extensive list of chopping and cook directions for common vegetables)
Cooked Chicken (poach it using this method that guarantees juiciness)- or any other protein, as desired. Everybody keeps little containers of cooked shredded chicken in the freezer, right?!
Green onion or coriander/cilantro, or chives, or even finely sliced onion (red, white, yellow brown) – something for a little hit of freshness.
How to make Chinese Noodle Soup
And here’s how it happens in 10 minutes. (And to all those cheeky buggers who will point out that if you have to simmer for 10 minutes, then it takes longer than 10 minutes – fine! You can take a 2 minutes off the simmer time!😉)
PRO TIP: Never cook noodles in the soup broth unless a recipe specifically calls for it. Noodles suck up loads of liquid when they cook, so if you do that you’ll end up with way less broth than you expect. Learnt this the hard way. 😖
Make it even HEALTHIER!!
Being that this is a noodle soup recipe and all, noodles are a key ingredient here. Even so, it clocks in at just 352 calories for a bowl.
But if you want to cut down on the carbs and calories even further, just skip the noodles and load it up with tons more vegetables to make a Chinese vegetable soup. In fact, it’s one of my “go-to” diet dinners (which should happen more frequently than it does…).
Do I miss the noodles? Of course I do. But I console myself with a healthy dose of chilli paste and lots of fresh herbs, Chicken Pho style.
But before you make it diet, try it the way it’s intended. THEN healthify it!!! – Nagi x
Watch How To Make It
This recipe features in my debut cookbook Dinner. The book is mostly new recipes, but this is a reader favourite included by popular demand!
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Chinese Noodle Soup
Ingredients
Broth
- 3 cups chicken stock/broth, low sodium (Note 1)
- 2 garlic cloves , smashed (Note 2)
- 1.5 cm / 1/2" ginger piece, cut into 3 slices (optional, but highly recommended)
- 1 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce , or normal all purpose soy sauce (Note 3)
- 2 tsp sugar (any)
- 1 1/2 tbsp chinese cooking wine (Note 4)
- 1/4 – 1/2 tsp sesame oil , toasted (optional) (Note 5)
Toppings & Noodles
- 180g / 6oz fresh egg noodles (Note 6)
- 2 large bok choy or other vegetables of choice (use any blanchable veg – Note 7)
- 1 cup shredded cooked chicken (or other protein of choice)
- 1 scallion / shallot , green part only finely sliced (optional garnish)
Instructions
- Place Broth ingredients in a saucepan over high heat. Place lid on, bring to simmer then reduce to medium and simmer for 8 – 10 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.
- Meanwhile, cook noodles according to packet directions.
- Cut bok choys in half (for small / medium) or quarter (for large). Wash thoroughly.
- Either cook the bok choi in the broth in the soup broth OR noodle cooking water for 1 min (if noodles required boiling).
- Pick garlic and ginger out of soup.
- Place noodles in bowls. Top with chicken and bok choy. Ladle over soup, garnish with green onions. Great served with chilli paste or fresh chillis.
Recipe Notes:
- Reduce soy sauce to 1 tbsp
- Add 1 tbsp Oyster Sauce (this has umami and will add complexity into the broth flavour to compensate for leaving out cooking wine).
- Fresh noodles, thin (ie from fridge section, this is what I use) – 90g / 3 oz per serving
- Fresh noodles, wide and flat (like thick Thai rice noodles) – 150g/ 5 oz per serving (much denser, so you need more)
- Dried noodles, pasta (yes, really!) – 60g / 2 oz per serving
- Ramen – 1 pack / “cake” per person
- Any Chinese veggies (bok choy/buk choi/pak choi, gai lan/Chinese broccoli, choy sum). Cut Bok Choy into half or quarters lengthwise (pictured / video), for other veg, cut into batons about 5cm / 2″ long
- Carrots – sliced on the diagonal
- Bean sprouts
- Green beans
- zucchini (sliced)
- green beans cabbage (thick slice)
- asparagus, broccoli / broccolini and cauliflower,
- any other vegetable that can be boiled.
Nutrition Information:
Originally published June 2016. Long overdue for a video to be added with brand new photos and process steps!
MORE ASIAN SOUPS YOU’LL LOVE!
Life of Dozer
Baby Hands and Giant Paws. Evidence for anyone who has wondered how small my hands really are. 😉
Anna says
Delicious! Perfect fridge clearing food!
Needed something quick, warming, to use up the Raman noodles my girls loved last week but no longer like today… and the 5 billion sugarsnap peas that seem suddenly need picking and eating right now.
Sarah says
I couldn’t find cooking wine, and accidentally bought fish sauce instead of oyster sauce. Would this work in place of the oyster sauce?
June says
Nagi, your recipes are always such a pleasure to make and to eat…and this one was no exception! We loved it – especially topped with slices of leftover char siu pork…mmm! Sooooo good – thanks for another trusty dish!
Nagi says
Yum, sounds perfect June!! N x
Natalie says
This was fantastic! I doubled it and did half soy half oyster, made the broth and let it simmer for a couple of hours and then pulled out the garlic cloves, mashed them into a paste and stirred them through the broth. Used a variety of veg and tried your poached chicken breast recipe, turned out perfectly. Thank you for a wonderfully flavourful and simple recipe!
Lisa W says
I was looking for a recipe which had Bok Choi in it, as I grew something. I whipped this up and the whole family LOVED it. Adding it to my ‘best recipes’ cookbook and will check out your other recipes!! Thank you from NZ. xx
Freddy W. says
We’ve made this recipe so many times, and it always turns out great!!
We fry the chicken, use more sesame oil and add in carrot with the pork choi 🙂
Next we’ll try making the broth, adding the chicken and then freezing it so we only need to add the vegetables and noodles when we feel like some delicious soup…anyone tried freezing the soup before? How did it go?
Nagi says
Hi Freddy, you can definitely freeze the broth, I’d keep the chicken and veg separate. N x
Colleen says
I made this for dinner last night and my husband said that it was delicious. Best compliment was that he said his grandma would be proud – she was from Penang and an amazing cook – so thanks Nagi!
Nagi says
Oh that’s lovely Colleen, thanks so much ❤️
michelle says
You had made a comment about how Chinese restaurants make their chicken so tender, and do you think I can find it again? What is the quantity and how do you use the baking soda?
Nagi says
Hi Michelle, yes it’s called velveting – you can find all the information here: https://www.recipetineats.com/velveting-chicken-chinese-restaurant-tenderise-chicken/ N x
Bill says
Hi Nagi: I’m an 84 year old man who loves Chinese food, I’m not a cook, but if I have to cook, I want it to be easy and relatively inexpensive with few complicated ingredients. This recipe met all that – and it’s delicious. Making my second batch today.
Nagi says
Perfect Bill, that’s so great to hear! N x
Robyn says
Oh yum, delicious and easy soup, I did add extra veg, definitely be made again in this house.
Sue says
Wow , this is so good Nagi !
Can’t believe so few ingredients make such a delicious broth . I added sliced carrot to cook in the broth for a couple of minutes . As good , if not better , than restaurant soup .
Irene says
Absolutely delicious and so warming. Thanks for a wonderful and quick and easy recipe!
Jenny O says
Omg, Nagi, stop! I’m lying, please do not stop. This is so good!!! I rarely leave reviews but this is no joke the fifteenth Nagi recipe I’ve made in the last few weeks and this one blew my socks off even more than the others if that’s possible! You are a practical culinary genius, thanks, Nagi!!
David Hall says
Made this tonight , was delicious! Thank you !
Nagi says
That’s great to hear David!! N x
Tim says
Made this last night and I was blown away by how nice it was. You have to watch the broth tho as it can boil over easily….yes…no I cleaned it up, and then it happened again…LOL
Bubbles says
I have very old Chinese cooking wine, how long does it last in a pantry shelf after opening?
Nagi says
Hi Bubbles, it does last a while – I’d say years 🙂 N x
Allison says
I am making this soup for the second time this week. It was that popular with my family! The broth is amazing and it was such a quick dinner to make
Nagi says
Wahoo, that’s great Allison! N x
Janice says
This is awesome!! I have to say that I love your site. All the options just take the stress out of trying something new! SO THANK YOU!!
Chris says
Fabulous recipe. So easy and thoroughly enjoyed it. Great for batch cooking and leftovers too.
Rajesh says
The dish was very simple and yet amazingly delicious. Loved it. Thank you very much Nagi.
Nagi says
Thanks so much for the great feedback Rajesh! N x
Lyn says
Wow!!! I made this the other night with Shirataki noodles to make low carb and it was delicious. Thank you so much for another simply delicious recipe.
Nagi says
Perfect Lyn!! N x