Meals · Soups & stews

Chicken noodle soup

Name: Chicken noodle soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 55 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 2 tsp olive oil; 1 onion yellow onions, diced; 2 carrots mature carrots, in coins; 3 stalks celery, sliced; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 450 g chicken thigh; 2 litres chicken broth; 1 tsp dried thyme; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp black pepper; 300 g cooked egg noodles, about 140 g dry; a handful fresh parsley, chopped

America's most-bought soup all winter, made properly: thighs simmered in the broth they flavour, vegetables, and just enough noodles. Broth soups are among the best things you can eat by this site's math — water does most of the filling.

Time: 55 min (15 prep + 40 cook)
Servings: 6
Per serving: 234 kcal
Protein: 19 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

2 tsp olive oil10 g
1 onion yellow onions, diced150 g
2 carrots mature carrots, in coins150 g
3 stalks celery, sliced120 g
3 cloves garlic, minced9 g
450 g chicken thigh450 g
2 litres chicken broth2000 g
1 tsp dried thyme2 g
1 tsp salt5 g
1 tsp black pepper2 g
300 g cooked egg noodles, about 140 g dry300 g

To finish

a handful fresh parsley, chopped10 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Soften the onion, carrot and celery in the oil, 6–8 minutes, then the garlic for a minute.
Add the whole thighs, broth, thyme, salt and pepper. Simmer gently 25 minutes — thighs stay juicy where breast turns to string.
Lift out the thighs, shred them with two forks, and return them.
Cook the noodles separately and add them to the pot (or to each bowl). Noodles boiled in the soup drink the broth and turn day two into paste. Finish with parsley.

Why cook the noodles separately?

Pasta keeps absorbing liquid as long as it sits in it. Cooked apart and added at serving, the soup stays a soup for days — and the noodle amount stays a choice instead of a fate.

Why this score

exceptionally filling

Very low energy density — a lot of food for few calories.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

33% of kcal

89% water

11 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1404 kcal goes into the pot, 3208 g of ingredients comes out as ~2750 g of food → 51 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 51
Protein: (33%); 4 g
Fat: (32%); 2 g
Carbohydrates: (35%); 4 g
of which sugar: 1 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 363 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More meals

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.