Quick and Easy Soup Recipes

It's been cold lately, so I've been cooking soups to warm up. Why didn't I think about putting up these recipes here before??? I don't know. But here they are. They're so simple.

Basic Ingredients:

• soup base: water and bouillon cubes or powder OR broth/stock
• your choice of: frozen veggies, pasta or noodles
• optional: eggs, cooked chicken strips cubed

I'm partial to chicken soup base. I use Knorr granulated chicken bouillon or Swanson chicken broth. If I use Knorr, I don't add salt and pepper. If I use a canned broth, I will add a little salt and pepper.

Misua Soup
Around 3-4 Servings
Ingredients:

• 4 cups soup base
• 1 1/2 cup frozen peas & carrots
• 1/2 to 1 cup misua noodles (depends on how much noodle you want)
• optional 1-2 eggs
• salt and pepper to taste, if needed

Instructions:

• Bring soup base to a boil.
• Add frozen vegetables.
• Lower heat to medium high.
• Add misua noodles. Stir, stir, stir.
• Boil until noodles are cooked and vegetables heated through.
• Optional: Add eggs and poach in soup until center is slightly firm.

Misua (or miswa, mee sua) is a very thin variety of salted Chinese noodles made from wheat flour. Find it in Asian grocery stores. It will say "misua" or "miswa" on the package. Sometimes it might say "Chinese Vermicelli" but it's different from rice vermicelli. I use the brands Tropics or UFC. It is powdery and breaks easily. It's very starchy. So a little bit goes a very long way.

The reason you add the misua in medium high heat is to make sure the noodles are fully cooked. If they're not, you will taste that powdery starch. You need to stir a lot because they can clump together, giving you clumped up starchy noodles. Confession: I actually love those clumps!

Filipinos have a dish simply called "Misua" or "Misua Bola Bola." It's a soup dish with meatballs, misua, and green onions. Some add more vegetables, and most will add eggs. I based this soup on that dish. I just didn't want to make the meatballs. I just wanted the misua! In times of intense cravings, I skip the veggies. Haha!

Bean Thread Soup
A bit of a cheat. It's the same as the "Misua Soup" but instead of using misua, use bean thread noodles or vermicelli noodles.

Egg Drop Soup
Around 3-4 servings
Ingredients:

• 4 cups chicken broth
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp chives (I use dried ones because that's what I have)
• optional: 1 tbsp corn starch mixed in 1 tbsp cold water

Instructions:

• Bring chicken broth to a boil.
• Get a fork ready nearby.
• Break eggs into the broth...unless you're not good at breaking eggs and tend to get shells in your cooking, then break the eggs into a bowl, fish out the shells, and drop the eggs into the broth.
• With a fork, pierce the yolks and stir, stir, stir. The fork will help you make ribbons out of the eggs.
• Add chives.
• Add corn starch mixture.

A note on corn starch: It should say in the box, but don't add corn starch directly into hot water because it will clump. Gross. I made adding corn starch optional because it's an extra step. It's makes the soup have a great consistency, but if you're feeling too cold or lazy (like me) then skip it. Hehehe!

Oh, and I don't always add the chives either. Or if I'm out of chives, I would use green onions.

Macaroni Soup
Around 4 servings
Ingredients:

• 5 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup elbow macaroni
• 1 cup frozen carrots
• 1 cup chicken strips cubed and/or shredded lunch meat
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Boil chicken broth.
• Add macaroni and boil until cooked.
• Add milk, carrots, and chicken and/or meat.
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Boil until carrots and chicken and/or meat are heated through.

This is my simple take on the Filipino macaroni soup, which is a bit more complicated. Google it for recipes. You can buy cooked chicken strips. Or take lunch meat (which was the only thing I had one day) and shred it or cut it up. Ham works great. Turkey and chicken will work too. I don't recommend using roast beef or bologna.

If you have leftovers of this soup, refrigerate! It has milk, so if you leave it out, it will spoil.