Feeling sick? Feeling under the weather? Feeling sick of the cold, even though the season just started? Never fear, Fideos are here. Sopa de fideos is essentially chicken noodle soup, but the #boricua version.

Considering that Puerto Rico does not have, you know, – 30 degree weather plus windshield, fideos have been used as a way to clear your pantry, giving the soup to kids, or (my NOT favorite) its 85 degrees weather.

Most of the ingredients are in your pantry, the only things you would get would be the fideos (in your international/Hispanic food aisle). Sazon, which I buy from amazon (its cheaper), and sofrito, which you can make your own (recipe here)

Serves 8
Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients

• Chicken cut to pieces (It can be a drumstick, boneless chicken breast or thighs, etc) I used chicken breast the day I made this recipe.
• 10 ounce bag of fideos
• 3 medium Yukon gold potatoes, chopped into pieces (I clean them and leave skin on, you can peel them if you like)
• 10 baby carrots
• Adobo (seasoning for chicken)
• 4 cups of unsalted chicken stock or water
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 2 cubes of my homemade sofrito
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Olive oil.
• 1 or 2 packets of sazon
• 2 bay leaf (leaf, leaves?) Two of those.

How to!

• Preheat a large Dutch oven to medium high heat. Add some oil and the 2 cubes (2 tablespoons) of sofrito and warm up the sofrito.
• Cut chicken to pieces (if you have not done so already) and season with salt, pepper, and the adobo.
• OPTIONAL: You can sear the chicken for more flavor, about 2-3 minutes on each side. I do this to create a fond, nice crust in the bottom, which adds more flavor to the soup.
• Add the chicken (if not seared), stock, bay, soy sauce, the sazon, and cook for 30 minutes.
• Check seasoning, add more salt or pepper, if needed.
• Add potatoes and carrots and continue cooking until the potatoes and carrots are tender, about 15 mins. Check seasoning.
• Add noodles and cook for 10 minutes until the fideos are cooked.

Tio Efra always had some white rice on the side, whenever we ate this at his house. My mom always did too, but if I wanted rice, I would have made asopao.

I personally like in my bowl with bigger chunks of chicken, but I was scolded by mom. So MOM says, it should look like a soup, with more noodles, less chicken and MORE veggies. Thanks Gloria.

This freezes beautifully, there’s even some soup containers if you want to go that extra step. If you double this dish, like I do (especially during the winter) it keeps for up to 4 days in the fridge!

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