07 January 2012


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It's time once again for the Crazy Cooking Challenge!  In this challenge, all the participants make and blog about the same dish each month.  Each blogger is to scour other blogs for the "ultimate" version of whatever that month's dish is.  The goal is to highlight and promote personal food blogs. This month's assigned dish was chicken noodle soup.  So we were to find the "ultimate chicken noodle soup" recipe, make it, and blog about it.

I found a recipe on Gina's Skinnytaste for Leftover Turkey Noodle Soup.  Even though her recipe called for turkey, I really liked the simplicity of it and it sounded just like what I had in mind.  So I started with that, and changed the turkey to chicken.  I felt like mixing things up a bit, so I made mini chicken meatballs instead of chunks of chicken breast.  I made mini meatballs for a soup I created last month, and they were so darn cute, I just had to make them again!  The only other thing I changed was to use spinach instead of the traditional celery.  I don't really like celery, but felt the soup still needed something green.  I've used spinach in soups before and I love it, so I went with that and it worked well.  Here's my adaptation.


Mini Chicken Meatball Noodle Soup

Ingredients:
6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 cup carrots, sliced
¼ large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ lb. ground chicken
2 tbsp soft bread crumbs
½ tsp Italian seasoning (Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset)
½ shallot, diced
¼ tsp salt
2 cups egg noodles
1 cup fresh spinach, torn

Directions:
Fill a large soup pot with chicken stock.  Add bay leaf, carrots, onion, and garlic and simmer 10-15 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. 

Meanwhile, combine the ground chicken, bread crumbs, Italian seasoning, shallot, and salt.  Form into 1 tsp sized meatballs.  Add them to the soup pot one by one, so they don’t stick together.  Stir.  Increase heat to high and add egg noodles and spinach.  Cook until noodles are soft and spinach is wilted.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.  Remove bay leaf.

Serve hot.

Makes 4 servings.

This soup was a big hit.  My 19-month-old gobbled down every little bit!  I love how simple it is and how easily and fairly quickly it can be thrown together.  Admittedly, chicken noodle soup isn't my favorite soup, mostly because I find it kind of "blah", but using mini meatballs takes it up a notch in the "interesting" department.  


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17 comments:

  1. Lesa, I love the idea of the mini chicken meatballs, can't wait to try it!

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  2. The meatballs are a nice twist! Looks great.

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  3. how clever to use meatballs!
    I made the shaker chicken noodle soup.
    http://letstrythese.blogspot.com/2012/01/crazy-cooking-challenge-shaker-chicken.html

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  4. Your soup looks wonderful and by the way, my entry was inspired by YOUR Thai Chicken Noodle Soup!

    If you haven't already, I'd love for you to check out my Crazy Cooking Challenge entry: Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

    Lisa~~
    Cook Lisa Cook

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  5. Thanks so much for choosing one of my recipes, Lisa! You totally made my day! I love what you did with it.

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  6. Meatballs are really good in soup. I have to try this for a change of pace. It looks delicious.

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  7. Penzey's spices are the best, aren't they? I love your mini meatballs - in our house chicken soup with mini chicken meatballs is called Italian Wedding Soup (hey, why didn't I think to make that??). I hope you'll stop by to visit my CCC post for Southwestern Chicken Noodle Soup. Take care!

    :)
    ButterYum

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  8. This is very unique. How interesting to use chicken meatballs.

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  9. Chicken meatballs! How Clever!!
    www.jennys-cookbook.blogspot.com

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  10. And, why not! Meatballs don't flop all over a spoon and lower the chances of stock on the shirt... love this recipe. Hope you'll visit my CCC entry #52, whilst I check out your other recipes...

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  11. I love, love, love the meatballs.Such simple genius! Looks delicious!

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  12. SO creative... those little chicken meatballs! Looks like some delicious soup! My soup is #1 - Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup - come check it out and it was my first time making Homemade Chicken Soup!

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  13. I love chicken meatballs in soup. This reminds me of an Italian Wedding soup...one of my all time favorite kinds!

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  14. This soup looks great! I would love it if you linked up this recipe to my blog hop for a chance to win a free Quaker prize package: http://bit.ly/AeIHc6

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  15. It looks comforting and delicious - love the little meatballs.

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  16. Hi Lesa, this looks like a really good recipe for mini chicken meatball noodle soup. I'm going to have to try this one soon, it's just perfect for our wintry weather. Thanks for sharing. I have recently found your blog and am now following you, and will visit often. Please stop by my blog and perhaps you would like to follow me also. Have a wonderful day. Hugs, Chris
    http://chelencarter-retiredandlovingit.blogspot.com/

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