🇵🇭 Philippines
SopasFilipino chicken macaroni soup
A creamy Filipino soup of elbow macaroni with shredded chicken (or ham), carrot, celery and cabbage in chicken broth finished with evaporated milk.
Origin and history
The name sopas comes from the Spanish sopa, 'soup'. Pepper.ph and Panlasang Pinoy describe it as a Filipino take on American chicken noodle soup from the period of US rule (Pepper.ph dates it to the 1900s), with milk added by Filipino cooks. Other blogs place its arrival in the Spanish colonial period or credit Italian macaroni; the sources do not settle it.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 45 min
- Hands-on
- 35 min
Ingredients
- 500 g1.1 lb chicken, skinless, bone-in thighs or breasts
- 2 liters2 quarts water, for boiling the chicken; the broth is kept
- 3 tbsp butter
- 1 onion, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 3 stalks celery, minced
- 1 large carrot, diced
- 60 g2 oz ham, chopped; optional
- 1 1/2 cups cabbage, chopped; optional
- 225 g8 oz elbow macaroni
- 1 can (about 400 ml)1 can (14 oz) evaporated milk, or 1 1/2 cups fresh milk
- 1 tbsp fish sauce, to taste
- salt and ground black pepper, to taste
- sliced spring onion, to garnish
Method
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1. Bring the water to a boil, add the chicken and simmer gently for 45 minutes, until tender. Lift the chicken out, keep the broth, and shred the meat when it is cool enough to handle, discarding the bones.
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2. Melt the butter in a large pot and sauté the onion, garlic, celery and carrot for 3 to 5 minutes, until the onion is soft.
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3. Add the shredded chicken and ham and cook for 2 minutes, then pour in the reserved chicken broth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
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4. Add the macaroni and cook for about 15 minutes, until tender, stirring now and then and adding a little water if the soup gets too thick.
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5. Stir in the cabbage and the evaporated milk and bring just back to a boil, so the cabbage softens and the broth turns creamy and pale.
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6. Season with the fish sauce, salt and pepper, and serve hot, topped with spring onion.
Notes
- The milk is what makes sopas: Filipino cooks add evaporated milk (or fresh milk) at the end, which gives the broth its creamy, slightly sweet character. Add it after the soup has finished cooking.
- Variations: hot dogs instead of ham, beef sopas, spicy sopas with chili, broken spaghetti in place of macaroni, or rice or potato instead of pasta. Some cooks top it with fried garlic, hard-boiled egg or chicharon.
- The macaroni keeps absorbing broth, so the soup thickens as it sits; keep the noodles and solids separate from the soup if you plan to store it (up to 3 days in the fridge) and add water or milk when reheating.
- It is usually served with bread such as pandesal, or with crackers, and is common at Christmas tables and on rainy days.
Adapted from Panlasang Pinoy, Filipino Chicken Macaroni Sopas, Panlasang Pinoy, Pinoy Chicken Sopas, Bite My Bun, Filipino Sopas, and Pepper.ph, Roast Chicken Sopas (Macaroni Soup).
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.