Chicken thigh soup with kale and crispy pancetta
- Preparation 30 min
- Cooking 50 min
- Servings 6 to 8
- Freezing Absolutely
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🍲 A chicken thigh soup with real substance in it
This one comes straight out of my first cookbook. I wanted a chicken noodle soup that didn’t taste like hot water with three sad carrots floating in it, so it got loaded: juicy boneless thighs, a pile of kale, crispy pancetta, and alphabet pasta because I never grew out of it. Every spoonful has to carry something. That’s my whole thing with soup, and it’s why the people who make this one stop making their old version.
🥓 Dark meat and pancetta do the work no broth can
Thighs are the reason this bowl tastes like something. Dark meat holds its juice through a long simmer where breast meat gives up and turns to string. Render the pancetta slowly, keep a spoonful of the fat for the chicken, and you get a smoky, salty base no carton of broth will ever fake. The kale holds up in there instead of dissolving the way spinach does, and a cup of light lager goes in near the end to lift the browned bits off the bottom of the pot. Nobody tastes beer in the finished bowl. They taste depth and can’t place where it came from.
🔥 Sear one thing at a time, then salt it properly
Pancetta first, chicken second, vegetables third, each on its own, each getting colour before any liquid shows up. Skip that and you get flat soup, and no amount of simmering afterward brings it back. Under-seasoning is the other classic mistake. Taste the broth before you serve and salt it again. It also freezes in single portions, which is how it usually ends up on my stove on a Tuesday when the day went sideways.
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🍜 Cook the pasta on the side, every single time
This is the one rule I won’t bend. Alphabet pasta simmered straight in the broth keeps drinking the liquid, and by the next day you own a pot of porridge instead of a pot of soup. Boil it separately, rinse it cold to stop the cooking, and drop it into each bowl at serving time. Your leftovers stay soup.
🌱 Kale over spinach
Kale stays kale in hot broth. Spinach vanishes into it within a minute.
🍻 Why there is lager in a chicken soup
The cup of light lager has one job: scrape every browned bit off the bottom of the pot and turn it into flavour. It leaves a soft malty backbone and no bitterness at all, and nobody at the table guesses there is beer in the bowl. Dry white wine does the same work. Plain broth works too, and the soup is still good, just flatter.
🧂 What actually gives chicken soup its flavour
Browning, and salt. Sear the pancetta first, then the chicken, then the vegetables, each on its own and each getting real colour before liquid touches the pot. That is the whole distance between this bowl and the pale version most people end up with. Then season the broth, taste it, and season it again. Under-salted soup is the most common mistake there is, and it makes people call a recipe bland when it is only naked.
❄️ Fridge and freezer
Four days in the fridge in a sealed container. Freeze it without the pasta, thaw it overnight in the fridge, and reheat it gently so the chicken doesn’t seize up. Boil a fresh handful of alphabets while it warms.
✅ What to serve with chicken and kale soup
It’s dinner on its own, but a piece of bread turns it into a proper meal. My crispy bread with cheese and honey is the one I reach for, and my homemade cheesy brioche buns were built for dragging through a broth like this. A slab of cheesy garlic bread does the same job with less work. A grilled cheese on the side makes it a Sunday night, and if you want a second pot on the table for people who like things plainer, my classic chicken noodle soup is the more classic cousin of this one.
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Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (375 ml) alphabet pasta
- 4 1/2 oz (125 g) pancetta, diced
- Olive oil
- 5 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 14 oz / 400 g), diced
- 1/2 Spanish onion, finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 celery stalks, cut in half lengthwise, then sliced
- 1 large carrot, cut in half (or in quarters) lengthwise, then sliced
- 3 cups (750 ml) kale leaves, roughly chopped
- 1 cup (250 ml) light blonde lager (or dry white wine, or chicken broth)
Seasonings
- 1 tsp (5 ml) Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp (5 ml) dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp (2 ml) dried parsley
- 6 cups (1.5 L) low-sodium chicken broth, hot
- 4 cups (1 L) water
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
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Preparation
- In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the pasta al dente according to the package directions. Drain in a colander, rinse well under cold water and drain again. Set aside.
- In a large pot over medium-low heat, add the pancetta with a small drizzle of olive oil and stir. Cook about 5 minutes, or until the pancetta is crispy. With a slotted spoon, lift the pancetta out of the pot and set it aside in a bowl. Discard three-quarters of the fat left in the pot.
- Return the pot to medium-high heat, add the chicken and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, for 7 to 8 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Add a little oil if needed. Lift the chicken out with the slotted spoon and set it aside with the pancetta.
- Reduce the heat to low, add the onion and garlic, then add a small drizzle of olive oil. Cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring.
- Add the celery and carrot with another drizzle of olive oil. Keep cooking 7 to 8 minutes, stirring. Season with salt and pepper. Add the kale and cook 3 minutes, stirring.
- Pour in the beer and scrape the bottom of the pot well to lift all the browned bits. Cook 1 minute, stirring.
- Add the seasonings, the chicken broth and the water, season with salt and pepper, then stir. Cover, bring to a boil, then reduce to low. Simmer covered for 10 minutes.
- Add the chicken, the pancetta and the pasta. Stir and simmer 2 more minutes before serving.
It does, and it holds up better than any other green I’ve tried. Kale keeps its structure in hot broth and gives you something to chew on, while spinach collapses into nothing within a minute. Add it with the vegetables rather than at the very end, so it softens in the pot and loses its raw bite. If spinach is all you have, stir it in right before serving and accept that it will mostly disappear into the broth.
Thighs, and I’m not being polite about it. Dark meat stays juicy through a simmer and carries far more flavour, which is the whole reason this is a chicken thigh soup and not another breast-meat bowl. Diced boneless thighs need 7 to 8 minutes of searing and then 12 minutes back in the broth, no more, or they start to fall apart. Breast works, but it shreds into bland strings and dries out fast. If breast is what’s in your fridge, cut it into slightly bigger cubes and pull the searing back to 5 or 6 minutes.
No, but try it once before you decide. One cup of light lager lifts the browned bits off the bottom of the pot and adds a malty depth broth alone can’t give you, and the finished soup does not taste like beer. To skip the alcohol, use 1 extra cup (250 ml) of chicken broth plus 1 tbsp (15 ml) of apple cider vinegar for that fermented tang, or grab a non-alcoholic lager from a small brewery. That’s what I do most of the time. Dry white wine works too.
Yes, as long as you freeze it without the pasta. Cooked alphabet noodles turn to mush on the thaw and there is no saving them. Freeze the soup on its own, thaw it in the fridge overnight, reheat it gently and boil a fresh handful of pasta while it warms up. In the fridge, it keeps four days in a sealed container.
Let it simmer uncovered a few minutes longer and let the broth reduce on its own. If you want it faster, crush a few pieces of carrot and celery against the side of the pot with a fork and stir them back in. Skip the cornstarch. It turns the broth gluey and flattens everything you built with the pancetta.
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