Melissa Hemsley
Chef and best selling author, lover of leftovers and seasonal vegetables and regular volunteer with food waste charities, kids community cooking and ambassador of Fairtrade farmers.
Mel’s Rescue Noodle Soup with Leftover Chicken
Melissa Hemsley
Effort:
Complexity:
Cost:
Serves: 4
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 25 mins
Ingredients:
1 tbsp ghee or butter
1 large leek or onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1.2 litres vegetable stock or bone broth
1 big handful of a mix of fresh herbs, like parsley and dill, leaves and stems chopped
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves or 1 tsp dried
1 bay leaf, dried or fresh
2 celery sticks, diced
2 carrots, thinly sliced
2 handfuls of 2cm chunks of root veg like sweet potato, squash, pumpkin, potato or (in the summer) courgette
400g noodles or spaghetti, any type
1 tsp olive oil
300g mix of cabbage, rainbow chard and/or chard, stems finely chopped and leaves shredded
300g leftover shredded chicken
Juice of ¼ lemon or 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 big handfuls of frozen peas or sweetcorn
Sea salt and black pepper
(See Flexi Swap tip for optional extras)
Veg Portions / Serving: 2
Extracted from Eat Green by Melissa Hemsley. Photography by Philippa Langley.
There’s nothing quite like a warming bowl of homemade soup to make you feel a thousand times better. If I’ve had a Sunday roast chicken, I make this on a Monday to get a great boost of vegetables in. It’s based on store cupboard and freezer ingredients like frozen peas, onion, garlic and carrots, though you could swap in anything that needs using up. You can up the amount of vegetables or noodles here, so adjust to your liking. Post-Christmas and other celebrations, this is a fantastic way to use up leftover turkey or any other leftover meats.
Method:
In a large wide saucepan, heat the ghee or butter and fry the leek or onion over a medium heat for 8 minutes while you prep everything else. Add the garlic and fry for another minute.
Add the stock or broth, chopped parsley or dill stems, thyme, bay leaf, celery, carrot, root veg and some salt and pepper, pop the lid on and cook for 15 minutes until the carrot is almost tender.
Meanwhile, cook the noodles in a separate pan until almost tender (check the label for suggested timings), then drain and rinse under cold water to stop them cooking further. Toss with the olive oil to stop them clumping and set aside.
Back to your soup pan: add the chopped cabbage and chard stems, shredded chicken, lemon juice or vinegar and cook for a few more minutes.
Add the chard leaves, frozen peas or sweetcorn and cooked noodles for a final 2 minutes so that the chard wilts, the peas cook and the noodles heat through. Season to taste and serve up straight away, topped with the fresh herb leaves.
Waste Not: You don’t have to use noodles here, you can add any pasta shapes you like so just use whatever odds and ends of pasta packets you have. You could even add the pasta straight into the soup to cook and save on using a second pan.
Flexi Swap: For a vegetarian version, swap the chicken for 500g roughly chopped mushrooms and a pinch of dried seaweed or seaweed salt. Sometimes I add even more garlic and a thumb of grated ginger plus 1 tsp ground turmeric for an extra boost. Try adding a tablespoon of miso or tamari just before serving or swap the herbs for coriander and mint.
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
Older children can help with chopping veg and adding ingredients to the pan (some younger kids will love doing this, too, if they are able to with your help). Get younger ones chopping herbs with scissors with your help, and toss the noodles with oil.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
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