Some soups, like the ever-popular chicken noodle, are served with pasta in the soup. But should you cook those noodles in the soup itself?
A general rule of thumb is that it’s best to cook your pasta separately, but there are a few stipulations. Here’s what to know so you can churn out your best soups with pasta or noodles!
Any pasta you use that is made with egg and semolina can be added to your soup without cooking it first in the last 8 to 10 minutes of cooking time. These kinds of noodles won’t soak up too much liquid in that short amount of time.
When using pasta or noodles made from quinoa, buckwheat, or some other type of flour, it’s better to cook it al dente (tender but firm) in a separate pot.
However, if you’re making a big portion of soup that you won’t eat all at once, you may want to keep that pasta separate, regardless of what it’s made from. Those noodles will soak up the liquid when you store it and the next serving will leave you with mushy pasta.
Broth-based soups will reveal a bit of cloudiness when you cook the noodles in there. If presentation is something important for this batch of soup, perhaps for a dinner party, you’ll definitely want to boil that pasta in another pot. Creamy soup bases won’t matter though, but again, texture is important to uphold so keep that in mind.
When preparing your soup in advance, you should never add the pasta to the soup until just before you’re about to serve it. Simmering noodles in soup for too long a duration will lead to an unpleasant texture. Plus, all that starch will get into the soup and impact the flavors.
The sweet spot for noodles is to put them in uncooked for 10 minutes before the soup finishes. Or to keep them separate, get them ready in another pot, starting the process 20 minutes before the soup finishes.
One last thing you must stay on top of when adding pasta to your soup is that you don’t want it clinging together. Once you put the pasta into the boiling water, stir it immediately. Don’t add oil to your cooking water either…it’s a waste of good oil. Add salt as soon as the water boils, then add the pasta and stir. This will ensure it doesn’t turn into a clumpy mess.
