This warm and soothing pastina soup is exactly what the doc ordered. It’s so secret that I love a good soul-healing soup. And chicken and stars soup is something that automatically heals the soul. Maybe it’s the playfulness of having stars in your soup or the nostalgia of a childhood classic. And when you’ve made my flu-fighting chicken noodle soup one thousand times, here’s a new one you can add to your repertoire. We’re adulting this classic chicken soup with homemade parmesan cheese broth – you know good things are in your future. I know that sounds complicated, but it’s exactly the same ingredients you need to make chicken broth, minus the chicken bones, and add a few parmesan rinds and some dried mushrooms. The mushrooms add so much extra flavor to this soup base. If it makes you feel any better, I took the liberty of making this entire chicken pastina soup in one pot, so once you make the broth, strain it and start making the soup. You can even make the parmesan broth a few days in advance. It’s ideal for making over the weekend and popping in the fridge for a quick weeknight pastina soup dinner. This is my take on Italian comfort food, and it’s gosh darn delicious!
Ingredients for pastina soup
Butter: You’ll need both butter and olive oil. I use a bit in the parmesan broth, and the rest goes into the soup.Onions: You’ll need two of everything for this recipe! For the stock, you can chop the onions a bit larger; this makes it easier to fish it all out when you strain the broth. Carrots: You’ll need carrots two ways for this recipe. For the broth, I like to leave them in large chunks; for the soup, I usually do a fine chop to ensure everything is relatively the same size as the pasta once it plumps up in the broth.Celery: You’ll need to do the same thing as you would for the carrots. Rough chunks for the broth and a fine chop of the soupDried Mushrooms: You can use porcini or shiitake mushrooms for this. Most grocery stores carry these in the international aisle (you’ll find porcini near the Italian ingredients and the shiitake near the Asian ones.) Herbs: You’ll need a fresh or dried bay leaf, and you’ll also need some fresh thyme. We’ll add this to the parmesan stock ingredients, so you get all the flavor without all the pieces floating in your soup!Seasonings: You’ll need your usual kosher salt and white or black pepper.Parmesan Rind: This is the backend of a block of parmesan. Many grocery stores these days will sell you the back only. I usually purchase a large block of parmesan from Costco and save the back for soups and stocks. It’s of my favorite ingredients for my pesto chicken meatball soup.Stelline Pasta: Stelline is the star-shaped little pasta I’ve used for this recipe, but small shells, acini di pepe, orzo, or any other tiny pasta shape will also work.Cooked Chicken: This can be a cooked rotisserie chicken. Usually, I get bone-in chicken breasts and roast them in the oven, shred and keep them on hand for soups for the week. This is a great way to always have cooked chicken on hand, and it doesn’t require much effort!A lemon: You’ll need both lemon zest and lemon juice. I love the added pop of vitamin c in the soup; it cuts through the richness of the parmesan broth a little and wakes up all the flavors. I like to add this towards the end so that it stays bright.Fresh parsley: I sprinkle some on top to finish, so it’s completely optional!
How to make the best pastina soup recipe
You might also like these Italian soup recipes:
Pesto Chicken Meatball SoupItalian Wedding SoupRoasted Garlic White Chicken Lasagna SoupThe BEST Minestrone SoupOne Pot Lasagna Soup
Parmesan broth IB: Food52
Quick tip: The pasta will soak a lot of the broth as it sits, so don’t discard the additional broth! Keep it to thin the soup as needed.Parmesan broth: you can easily make the broth a day or so in advance to speed up the process the day of. You can also replace the parmesan broth with 8 cups of chicken broth and simmer with two large rinds of parmesan in step 3, but the flavor is so much better with the from-scratch parm broth!
