Chicken Noodle Soup on the Stove
Bouillon, instant soup packets, and egg noodles. Hot lunch in under ten minutes.
- calories
- 480
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 80
- protein
- 32 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 8 min
- total time
- 13 min
- water
- 500 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Lunch
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Day hike
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Water | 1 liter | |
|---|---|---|
| Chicken bouillon | 1 cube or 1 tsp paste | |
| Instant chicken soup packets | 2 packets | the just-add-water cup kind |
| Egg noodles | 120 g | thin ribbons cook fastest |
| Shelf-stable cooked chicken | 200 g | two foil pouches, torn into pieces |
| Bell pepper | 1 small | or 1/4 cup dried pepper flakes for longer trips |
Method
- At home or at the trailhead, cut the pepper into small pieces and open the chicken pouches. Nothing here needs a cold chain.
- Bring 1 liter of water to a boil and stir in the bouillon until it dissolves.
- Add the noodles to the boiling water and cook about three minutes.
- Stir in the soup packets and keep stirring until no powder is left clinging to the sides.
- Cut the heat. Add the chicken and pepper and stir. The residual heat warms them through in a minute.
- Split between two bowls, or eat straight from the pot.
The soup packets are doing two jobs: they season the broth and they thicken it, which is what keeps this from tasting like noodles in salt water. The bouillon underneath gives the base something to stand on, since one packet spread across a liter is thin.
Chicken and pepper go in off the heat on purpose. The chicken is already cooked and boiling it just makes it stringy, and the pepper keeps some bite that way. On trips longer than a day or two, drop the fresh pepper for dried flakes — everything else in the pot is already shelf-stable, and the pepper is the only thing that will go soft in a pack.
Packing
Noodles, bouillon, and both soup packets go in one bag. Chicken pouches and the pepper ride separately so nothing gets punctured or crushed.
Variations
- Use 700 ml of water instead of a liter for a thicker, saltier bowl.
- Swap the fresh pepper for dried vegetable flakes and add them with the noodles so they rehydrate.
- A tablespoon of oil stirred in at the end pushes this past 600 calories a serving.
https://www.friluftsmat.no/post/chicken-noodle-soup-rask-turmat-p%C3%A5-primus