For Chicken Noodle Soup In A Rush, Swap Out The Main Ingredient

There's nothing like a bowl of classic chicken noodle soup on a chilly day. There are many ways to elevate your go-to recipe, from adding lemon juice to brighten it, to finishing off your chicken soup with a splash of vodka, but what if timing is your biggest concern? While most chicken noodle soups require simmering for one to a few hours, sometimes you want to enjoy yours much faster. Luckily, there's one easy swap you can make to help speed the process along: using ground chicken in place of cooking and shredding a whole chicken — or chicken parts — yourself.

Ground chicken is quick to cook and add to your soup right away, rather than using pre-cooked meat (a common trick for making a faster soup). By cooking the chicken fresh, you get those deep, complex flavors that leftovers don't really deliver. Ground chicken has plenty of surface area, too, so it's also able to absorb the flavorful stock and those quintessential aromatics and spices, like carrots, onions, and herbs. 

To make this speedy chicken noodle soup, simply cook the ground chicken in some oil and seasonings until it starts to brown, and then move it to a plate. Then, just cook the veggies until they've softened before adding in your stock and egg noodles. After the noodles are cooked, you can dump the chicken back into the pot so that everything melds together before serving.

If you're looking for more ways to speed up the soup-making process, you can cut corners in some other areas as well. For instance, while buying pre-cut veggies is more expensive than cutting whole ones yourself, sometimes the price difference is worth reducing the headache and time it takes to chop them. Some stores even sell pre-cut soup veggies in packs, so you can grab one that already includes carrots, onions, and celery.

Another way to make faster soup is by purchasing boxed stock or broth rather than making a batch yourself. While stock and broth are technically different (broth is made with meat and veggies, while stock is created with bones and water), they can be used interchangeably for soup. If you want to elevate your soup base, adding some white wine to boxed broth is an easy way to make it taste homemade. 

Lastly, if you'd rather not deal with cooking raw meat at all, try using frozen chicken meatballs in your noodle soup. You can simmer them right in the broth with the other ingredients until just cooked through, for a flavorful, meaty dish in mere minutes. With these tips, you'll be able to whip up a pot of chicken noodle soup in a fraction of the time it takes to make a traditional batch — and we can bet nobody will be able to taste the difference.