This easy, versatile chicken noodle soup recipe is made with leftovers from a Sunday roast chicken dinner, including leftover gravy. It’s easy to tailor the recipe too depending on what you have lurking in your fridge needing to be used up. This ‘Flung Together Food’ recipe post has been created in collaboration with Love Food Hate Waste.
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Flung Together Food – a Love Food Hate Waste campaign
One of the things I take some pride in is the fact that I can rustle up a rather decent meal out of just about anything. Honestly, the fridge can be nearly empty and I could whip up a three-course meal that will have folk heading for seconds. It’s a thing I do, and truth be told, it’s one of my favourite ways of cooking. Challenge accepted.
#FlungTogetherFood is a month-long campaign organised by Love Food Hate Waste. The aim is to raise awareness of the need for us, as consumers, to reduce our food waste and encourage others to do so too. Environmental issues can’t be ignored.
When Love Food Hate Waste challenged me to create and share a recipe for their #FlungTogetherFood campaign I jumped at the chance. This time of year, after the Christmas indulgences and a rather painful tax bill to pay I’m really counting the pennies and making sure that I get my money’s worth for everything.
I set myself a challenge at the start of the year to use up the food I already had in the house before buying new food. I’m pretty good with freezing leftovers, like leftover chicken gravy and shredded chicken from a Sunday roast.
So, for my contribution to the #FlungTogetherFood campaign, I’m sharing my family favourite chicken noodle soup recipe.
Homemade soup in a flask – a recipe for adventure
This recipe can be made in under half an hour using leftovers from your Sunday roast chicken dinner. When the sun shines and the gales ease briefly this soup can be whipped up, poured into a flask and taken out on a winter hill walk/picnic.
When it’s sunny in Shetland (especially in February!) it’s important to take advantage of the good weather (or let’s face it, middling weather will do!) to get outside to play.
My chicken noodle soup recipe varies depending on what ingredients I have on hand – this particular one used up some of the leftover Brussels sprouts languishing in my vegetable crisper since Christmas (how do they last so long?!). Leftover roast chicken gravy diluted with some chicken stock made the base of the soup, and I added plenty of shredded leftover roast chicken.
Leftover food tastes even better in the great outdoors, even in the wintertime – just pour your flung together food into a flask and get outside exploring!
For this recipe, you will need…
- 1 tbsp sunflower oil
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 large brown onion
- 1 carrot (or two, if you fancy!)
- 2-3 garlic cloves (or more, if you’re trying ward off a cold)
- something green: leftover sprouts, leeks, or some chopped chard or kale works fine
- leftover roast chicken – up to around 300 grams. If you don’t have that much, add more vegetables.
- 100 grams frozen sweetcorn
- 1.2 litres of leftover chicken gravy topped up with chicken stock
- 60 grams of dried spaghetti (or any other small pasta)
- salt & pepper, to taste
- chopped spring onion & fresh parsley, to garnish
How to make homemade chicken noodle soup from scratch
- Heat butter and sunflower oil in a large soup pot. Saute onion for five minutes, until softened but not coloured.
- Add garlic and chopped carrot, cooking for a further two minutes.
- Add shaved Brussels sprouts or whatever leftover veg you have needing to be used up.
- Pour over any leftover roast chicken gravy, topped up with water and/or chicken stock and bring to the boil.
- Add your shredded leftover roast chicken and frozen sweetcorn.
- Add dried spaghetti, broken into small sections and simmer 12-15 minutes.
What other vegetables could I use in chicken noodle soup?
You can use up whatever you have lurking in your fridge in chicken noodle soup. It’s a very forgiving recipe, but leeks, celery, kale, sweetcorn, parsnips, turnips, swede and chard work very well.
What can I add to my chicken noodle soup for flavour?
The best chicken noodle soup is made with homemade chicken stock. Failing that, throw in another chicken stock pot.
Don’t throw out the carcass of your roast chicken once you’ve picked most of the meat off. Simply pop it on a roasting tray (along with the chicken skin and any bits leftover), a couple of halved carrots, a celery stick or two and drizzle with olive oil. Roast in a hot oven for 45 minutes until the edges are all browned and crispy.
Then, transfer the entire lot into a large stockpot, cover with water and add a capful of apple cider vinegar (this helps leach the calcium out of the bones). Add some parsley stalks, a bay leaf or two and about ten peppercorns.
Simmer, on a low heat, uncovered, for four hours. Strain, reserving the liquid, and freeze the cooled stock until needed.
Tips for making chicken noodle soup
- Leftover chicken gravy and leftover roast chicken freeze really well. Simply defrost when needed, and whip up a batch of this soup!
- I make my chicken gravy using some of the cooking water from the vegetables I am serving with my roast chicken dinner (usually carrots and neeps).
- Any pasta can be used instead of noodles – small shapes working best. Try orzo, or those adorable little alphabet pasta shapes.
- use a mandoline slicer to shred your Brussels sprouts – it makes short work of the task!
What are your best tips & tricks for making the most of your leftovers? Do you make the best one-pot pasta dish with leftover veg? How about the tastiest stir-fry? Let us know in the comments!
Leftover Roasted Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp sunflower oil
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 large brown onion finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 1 large carrot finely diced
- 100 grams Brussels sprouts finely sliced
- 1.2 litres leftover chicken gravy topped up with chicken stock
- 300 grams leftover roast chicken coarsely shredded
- 100 grams frozen sweetcorn
- 60 grams dried spaghetti broken into small pieces
- salt and pepper to taste
- 3 spring onions chopped, to garnish
- 1 handful fresh parsley chopped, to garnish
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Instructions
- Heat the sunflower and butter in a large soup pot and gently saute the onion over a medium heat until it begins to soften about five minutes.
- Add the chopped garlic and diced carrot, and cook for a further minute or so.
- Add the finely sliced Brussels sprouts and cook for another minute.
- Pour in the leftover gravy topped up with chicken stock. Bring to the boil.
- Reduce the heat and add the shredded leftover roast chicken and frozen sweetcorn. Add more chicken stock, if needed. Season well, to taste.
- Break in the dried spaghetti and simmer for 12 minutes, until the chicken is heated through and the spaghetti is cooked.
- Serve with chopped spring onion, chopped parsley and plenty of crusty bread to dip.
Video
Notes
What to do with leftover chicken noodle soup
This chicken noodle soup is best eaten straight away, as the noodles tend to continue to absorb the liquid from the soup. However, leftovers and be frozen and reheated. Simply top up the liquid content with some more hot chicken stock and reheat!Nutrition
Environmental Information
Other Love Food Hate Waste Tips & Tricks
19 recipes that will make you love your leftovers
Many people throw food out based on how it looks but unless it’s mouldy or smells bad, it is often perfectly usable. Wilting herbs can be used up or frozen for later, soft vegetables are great for cooking and yesterday’s meal can either be eaten again or reconstructed to take on a second life. Let your creativity run wild or simply look up recipe ideas online. Cooking this way saves time and money, and helps reduce food waste too!
How to Make the Most out of Your Fridge
One of the greatest contributors to the UK’s food waste problem is the perishables that need to be kept in the fridge. Sadly, many fresh foods are not chilled correctly or aren’t chilled at all, so they don’t last as long as they should.
6 Tips for Perfect Portioning
Food waste is heavily impacted by the lure of ‘bigger’. It starts with overbuying as we fall for the endless, seemingly good value supermarket deals, continues in the kitchen with portioning errors during cooking and ends with oversized meals that we just can’t finish. As a result, we throw out lots of perfectly good food which could have been avoided with just a bit more thought. The key is understanding when enough is… enough.
Tips For Weekly Meal Planning
Thinking ahead about what you want to cook each week is one of the easiest things you can do to take the hassle out of cooking and shopping. Taking just 10 minutes to write a short plan could save you several trips to the supermarket, last-minute dashes to the convenience store for missing ingredients and will also help you feel on top of things.
Food Storage Tips & Tricks
Storing foods correctly can extend their lifespan dramatically. Some foods don’t get on very well with other foods. For example, pineapples don’t like the fridge and apples are great companions with potatoes to stop them from sprouting. Keeping food in the right company, in the right place and in the right conditions can really help keep them fresher and crisper for longer.
Understanding Food Labels
Food labelling should and can be simple but is often made to be quite confusing. Across the wide range of food products available there are so many different codes, labels and standards that it can be difficult to know what we’re looking for and what it all means for us at home. But getting to grips with three key date labels is very important and can significantly help reduce food waste in the home.
Pin this Easy Chicken Noodle Soup recipe for later!
This is a sponsored recipe post in collaboration with Love Food Hate Waste, although all thoughts and opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for supporting the brands who make it possible for me to do what I love: mess up my kitchen and share recipe stories.
Daydream adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Calls Shetland home, for now. One eye is always on the horizon.
mohan kumar says
Thank you so much for sharing with us.
This look so fresh and delecious
Elizabeth says
Thank you! 🙂
gatot says
emmmm i like it, nice blog
Elizabeth says
Thank you! 🙂
martutz says
This looks delicious! I’m also struggling for a healthier me, I’ve even start running and I can say I’m on the right track now. Nutrition is an important part of my losing weight plan, and your blog posts are a true inspiration!
Elizabeth says
Aw shucks, I’m glad I can be of some help! Good luck with the fitness & nutrition! 🙂
Alison says
Fresh and healthy ingredients! I love the addition of brussel sprouts in this soup!
Elizabeth says
Thanks Alison, it’s one way to use them up, at least! 🙂
Erika says
This soup looks so good, and I love recipes where I can use leftovers.
Elizabeth says
Thanks Erika, glad you like the look of it! 🙂 I detest wasting food, so this is my favourite way of cooking.
Jordin says
Oh my! This sounds soo delicious and easy to make, I can’t wait to try out this recipe! My family is going to love it!
Elizabeth says
Do let me know what they thought!
Bintu | Recipes From A Pantry says
I do love a chicken noodle soup and this is such a fantastic way of using up the leftovers from your Sunday dinner. This looks super tasty.
Elizabeth says
Thanks Bintu! 🙂
Alisha Rodrigues says
Flavorful and delicious soup made out of leftovers sounds interesting. Soup is one of my favorite quick and easy Dinner option.
Elizabeth says
It’s one of my favourite ways to use up leftovers too. Very versatile!