Chinese Noodle Soup

Chinese Noodle Soup in a white bowl, ready to be served

Chinese Noodle Soup is incredibly quick and easy – if you know the secret seasonings! With fresh ginger and garlic flavours, you’d swear the Asian soup broth is from a Chinese restaurant, it’s that good.

10 minutes, just 332 calories for a big bowl. Use any noodles, any vegetables, any protein – or not! Terrific fridge forage food.

Chinese Noodle Soup in a white bowl, ready to be served

Fast Chinese Noodle Soup!

This Chinese Noodle Soup really is one of my classic “back pocket” recipes because it’s so versatile and it’s incredibly quick. Here’s a run down of how it goes:

Broth: Simmer chicken broth + soy sauce + Chinese cooking wine (or any sub provided) + sugar + sesame oil + garlic & ginger for 10 minutes (even 5 minutes is fine).
Noodles: Prepare fresh OR dried noodles according to packet directions;
Toppings: Rummage in fridge and locate vegetables & proteins of choice. Chop roughly and toss into the noodle cooking water OR broth to cook; and
Serve: Place noodles in bowls. Pour over soup and toppings.

See? 10 minutes!

Ladle of Chinese Noodle Soup Broth

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:

Ingredients in Chinese Noodle Soup Broth

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);
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:

Add ins for Chinese Noodle 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!
Buk Choi – or any vegetables. I like buk choi 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 Shredded Chicken – or any other protein, as desired. Because 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.

Chopsticks picking up noodles in an Asian noodle soup

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! )

How to make Chinese Noodle Soup

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.

So while you can in fact just cook the vegetables in the soup broth, do not cook the noodles in the broth.

Overhead photo of Chinese Noodle Soup with chicken, noodles and buk choi

Make it even HEALTHIER!!

Being this is a noodle soup recipe and all, noodles are a key ingredient here. Even so, it clocks in at just 332 calories for a bowl.

But if you want to cut down on the carbs and calories even further, just skip the noodles and loading 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

Chinese Noodle Soup

Recipe video above. A simple, delicious Chinese noodle soup with a broth that you'd swear came from your favourite Chinese restaurant! This is a midweek version so it's made with store bought soup broth rather than a made from scratch broth. I've kept the toppings very simple for this one because this recipe is more about the broth than the toppings. You can add any toppings you want - vegetables and proteins (refer note 6).

Course Soup

Cuisine Asian, Chinese

Keyword asian soup broth, chinese noodle soup

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Servings

Calories 337kcal

Author Nagi | RecipeTin Eats

Ingredients

Broth

3 cups / 750 ml chicken stock/broth, low sodium (Note 1)
2 garlic cloves , smashed (Note 2)
1/3" / 1 cm piece of ginger , sliced (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 3)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Toppings & Noodles

6 oz / 180g fresh egg noodles (Note 5 for options)
2 large bok choy plus/or other vegetables of choice
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 high and simmer for 5 - 10 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.
Meanwhile, cook noodles according to packet directions.
Cut vegetables to desired size. For bok choy, cut them into quarters (cut a cross into the base and tear it into neat quarters with your hands).
Pick ginger and garlic out of soup broth. Add buk choi and cook for 1 minute. Add chicken then turn the stove off.
Place noodles in bowls. Divide soup and toppings between bowls. Garnish with shallots if using. Great served with chilli paste or fresh chillis.

Notes

1. Just store bought chicken broth is fine. Though of course, homemade would take this to another level!

2. To smash garlic cloves, just wack the side of your knife onto a garlic clove so it bursts open but remains mostly in one piece. This allows the flavour to seep into the soup and easily pick it out before serving. You could just mince the garlic using a garlic crusher but you'll have little bits of garlic visible in the broth, rather than being a clear clean broth.

3. Chinese cooking wine is a key ingredient to transform store bought chicken broth into a restaurant-quality soup broth. Dry Sherry is an excellent substitute. Otherwise, sake or mirin are adequate substitutes.

If you cannot use alcohol, I think the best sub is 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar and 1 tbsp of apple juice OR just 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar OR Verjuice.

4. Extra broth flavouring options: star anise, chilli paste or sriracha, scallions / shallots (just fold them).

5. Noodles: Use any you want, fresh or dried. Prepare them according to packet directions - do not add into the broth (it sucks up lots of the broth). I use thin fresh egg noodles (see photo in post), like this one from Woolworths (Australia) which is what Chinese restaurants typically use.

But Hokkien (thin is better, but the fat one is ok too), Singapore Noodles and other egg noodles would also be fine, as well as any dried or fresh rice noodles.

6. Toppings: Cook proteins separately to keep things simple. My "go to" is shredded cooked chicken because I keep little bags in the freezer. Egg is also great - just whisk it lightly, pour it in and whisk to create egg "ribbons". Chinese BBQ Pork Slices is epic - but I never have leftovers.

For vegetables, I cut them and put them into the broth to cook. Put the vegetables that will take the longest to cook in the broth first, and delicate ones last.

REMEMBER: The vegetables will continue to cook while you are serving! So for example, I only add the buk choi 1 minute before taking it off the stove.

Veggie suggestions: Any Chinese veggies (bok choy, gain lan/Chinese broccoli, choi sum) cut into batons or quartered (if small) per photo, carrots sliced on the diagonal, scallions/shallots and bean sprouts are the toppings commonly found on Chinese noodle/ wonton soups.

But these veggies also go well (though not common in Chinese restaurants): zucchini (sliced), cabbage (thick slice), asparagus, broccoli / broccolini and cauliflower, or any other vegetable that can be boiled.

7. Nutrition is per serving, assuming 1/4 tsp of sesame oil is used. The nutrition can be substantially enhanced by adding more vegetables! Sodium reduces to 552mg per serving if low sodium soy sauce and chicken broth is used.