Sides to Serve with Chicken Noodle Soup
A salad is always a refreshing side with this soup. Try this simple salad dressing on a Low Sodium Caesar salad (you can use any kind of lettuce). No Romaine lettuce required.
Any leftover soup is great to mop up with a thick, crusty loaf of bread. Low-sodium artisan bread tastes great with a dab of butter. Alternatively, for a quick crunch addition, you can just use oyster crackers with less sodium.
I also make a great Low Sodium Cornbread with Honey that is very simple to make. With its added sweetness, I heartily suggest this. It’s also great for removing any leftovers from the bowl.
I’m not sure how winter is going where you are, but I can tell you that it has been extremely cold and snowy in western Montana, and it feels like it will never end. I’m making the most of the cold weather by preparing as many dishes as I can, instead of complaining about the snow and the cold. This entails experimenting with casseroles, chilies, soups, stews, and other oven-friendly treats. I will be content to eat grilled meats and fresh vegetables come summertime, but for the time being, I’m content to stay inside and prepare entirely different meals.
Pinching off the dough is the only part of this recipe that is a little difficult to explain. Although it is very simple, it can be challenging to explain in a recipe if you haven’t done it before. See the picture below? Those noodles are the pinched-off pieces. I simply keep pinching off bits of dough and flattening them slightly between my thumb and forefinger until there is no more dough. I also avoid taking up a lot of counter space by dropping the dough pieces straight into the soup pot as I pinch them (recipe follows).
A low-sodium diet always presents some challenges when it comes to soups, but when you get one right, they’re sooooooo welcome. And this homemade dumpling-like noodles in creamy chicken noodle soup makes it perfectly.
I start by searing the chicken, which adds a ton of flavor to the base, and then I work out how to keep the sodium in this soup low without losing the flavor. After that, I add some milk and flour to make it creamy and some soy sauce with less sodium to intensify the flavor. But the noodles are what, in my opinion, really set this soup apart. Instead of rolling out the dough and cutting it into strips, I pinch off the noodles when I make my own egg noodle dough to keep things simple. I prefer the pinched noodles because they are thicker and resemble dumplings, and they are much easier to make. You can certainly use this dough for rolled noodles if you prefer those that are thinner; it will also work well for that purpose.
Sodium in chicken noodle soup
One cup of the well-known brand of soup contains 890–940 mg of sodium. Despite the soup’s name, “chicken noodle,” there are two or three distinct varieties. This accounts for the disparity in taste. That much would easily surpass my daily sodium goal after other meals, and even with just a cup of soup, I would still be starving.
I have to mention that the famous brand has lowered the sodium in its soup, which is 25% less, but the price is still too high for me. However, they do, amazingly, have a low-sodium variety of chicken noodles (120 mg per 10 75 can or 1 1/3 cups. This isn’t too bad in light of the circumstances, though I haven’t tasted it to comment on its flavor or content.
With only 26 mg of sodium per half cup, or 104 mg for a realistic 2-cup serving, my Low Sodium Chicken Noodle Soup recipe is low enough to be below most sodium meal budgets while still allowing you to add a complimentary side dish.
