Pastina soup has a long history with my family. It’s baby food, it’s sick day food, it’s I-need-extra-comfort-today-food. My great-grandmother used it, my mom uses it and now I use it. And the absolute key, must-have ingredient for this soup is homemade chicken broth. It is just not the same with the boxed stuff.
There are an endless number of vegetables you can use for this soup, but I like it simple. The broth is so rich and flavorful that I don’t like to overwhelm it with too many ingredients. So below is the most basic recipe I use for this soup.
Begin by heating olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add:
1/2 a large yellow onion, sliced
2 large carrots, sliced
a touch of salt
Cook until the carrots and onions are soft and tender (but not brown), at least ten minutes. If your broth is already plenty salty then be very careful how much salt you put on the onion and carrots. Just enough to bring out the flavor. Next add:
6-8 cups of homemade chicken broth
I say 6-8 cups because it really depends how much soup you want to make and how much broth you want. Sometimes when I’m sick, I want more broth than veggies/pasta or sometimes I want a more even broth to pasta/veggie ratio. Also keep in mind that the broth will cook down a little bit while the pastina boils. And speaking of pastina, next add:
1/4-1/2 cup of pastina (aka Acini di Pepe)
Half a cup doesn’t look like much, but it always cooks up more than I expect it to. Once again, use less pastina if you want mostly broth.
Turn up the heat and bring the pastina to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, turn it down to a simmer and let the pastina cook until tender. Then add:
cooked chicken, pulled off the bone and torn into bite-size pieces
1/4 cup of frozen peas
I use the same chicken that I used to make the broth, so it’s usually dark meat. I vary the amount of chicken I use every time, so add however much you want. (You may have noticed by now that the measurements for this soup really don’t matter. That’s the beauty of this soup. Maybe one day you’re in the mood for more peas than chicken. Or maybe lots of pastina. Switch it up and figure out which proportions are right for your mood.)
Cook for a few more minutes until the chicken and peas are heated through. Taste for seasoning. Serve the soup with crackers, crusty bread, or even a sprinkle of Parmesan or Romano cheese on top. Enjoy!
