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The coziest Italian Pastina Soup! This easy chicken and stars soup is so warm and soothing. We start with a homemade parmesan broth; add a few vegetables and star-shaped pasta, and you’ve got the best kind of feel-better soup!
It’s no secret that I love a good soul-healing soup. Chicken and tiny stars soup is something that automatically heals the soul.
And when my whole family is sick for the past week and needs something other than flu-fighting chicken noodle soup, I switch gears and make this Italian penicillin soup instead. And yes, even my daughter who is convinced she doesn’t like celery or carrots gobbled up bowlfuls and didn’t even know how many veggies she’d eaten. I may have added her portion to a regular blender, before adding the little pasta in there, but I won’t tell if you won’t.
We’re making 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, during recipe testing, I went ahead and decided for all of us that chicken pastina soup is our SOS, so it needs to be made in one pot.
This is my take on Italian comfort food, and it’s gosh darn delicious!
Hands down best chicken soup I’ve ever made!
Hands down best chicken soup I’ve ever made!
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.
- Yellow Onion: 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 soup
- Dried 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 tiny star-shaped pasta I’ve used for this recipe, but any very small pasta shape will do: acini di pepe, orzo, or any other tiny pasta shape works.
- Cooked Chicken: This can be a cooked store-bought 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.This just wakes up all the flavors on your tongue.
- Fresh parsley: I sprinkle some on top to finish, so it’s completely optional
Recipe Tip
Can I use store-bought stock? Yes. Any low-sodium chicken stock or vegetable broth will also work. You may want to let it simmer for a bit longer before adding in the pasta with at least one small parmesan rind. That will give it a much better flavor. You can also make homemade chicken broth and toss in some parmesan rinds if you’d like.
Do I have to add protein? No. You can skip the shredded chicken if you want.
Can I add eggs? The recipe for pastina with eggs is a little different. You would need to use less broth so that it’s more like an orzo risotto than a soup.
Other Italian Soup Recipes
Soups & Stews
Pesto Chicken Meatball Soup in Parmesan Broth
Dinner
Italian Wedding Soup
Soups & Stews
Roasted Garlic White Chicken Lasagna Soup
Comfort Foods
Homemade Minestrone Soup (Slow Cooker)
Soups & Stews
Comforting One-Pot Lasagna Soup
Parmesan Chicken Pastina Soup
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon butter divided
- 4 cups hot water + 8 cups room temp
- 2 medium yellow onions chopped, divided
- 4 carrots 2 in large chunks, 2 small diced
- 4 celery stalks 2 large chunks, 2 small diced
- 8-10 (~.5 ounce) dried porcini or shiitake mushrooms rehydrate in hot water
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 sprigs thyme
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt plus more
- 1 parmesan rind cut into medium pieces
- 1 clove garlic pressed
- 1 cup stelline pasta or small shells, etc
- 2 cups cooked chicken shredded
- Kosher salt + white pepper
- Zest of 1 lemon + 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- Parmesan + parsley for topping
Instructions
- PARMESAN BROTH: In a large soup pot, melt a tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Add half the onions, chunks of carrots, and celery, and saute for 4 minutes. Add mushrooms, bay leaf, thyme, and cheese rinds. Let cook for another 4 minutes. When the cheese and vegetables start sticking to the bottom of the pot, start slowly pouring in the hot water as you stir and scrape to help deglaze the pan. When deglazed, add the remaining water and kosher salt. Bring to a simmer, stir and make sure nothing is stuck.
- SIMMER: Lower the heat to medium-low and let simmer for 50-60 minutes, stirring often to ensure the cheese isn’t sticking to the bottom. You should see steam billowing off the pot but no visible bubbling in the stock. Strain the broth, and set aside for now.
- SOUP: To the same soup pot, add the remaining tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of oil. Sauté the remaining onions, carrots, and celery with a pinch of salt for 7 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add 8 cups of prepared stock and bring to a simmer. Add the shredded chicken and pasta and cook for 6-7 minutes or as indicated on the package, stirring often to keep the pasta from sticking.
- FINISH: When the pasta is done, turn off the stove, add the lemon zest and juice. Taste and adjust with salt as desired, you shouldn’t need too much more. Serve warm topped with parm and parsley on top.
Notes
- 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!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like This? Leave a comment & rating below!
Parmesan broth IB: Food52
My favorite! Have made this multiple times! Just making it again today!
So happy to hear that, Sherry! Appreciate you stopping by to leave a review 🙂
Hands down best chicken soup I’ve ever made! Used Jovial brown rice stelline to make it gluten free and it was absolute perfection. Thank you!
Hi there!
I just wanted to leave you a quick little note and review! Thank you SO much for sharing this recipe! My son and husband have been sick all week and I was looking for something other than chicken noodle but not too out there because I have a picky eater! This soup is amazing and beyond delicious. My husband had two bowls and my son ate the entire thing! Which is rare in this house. This recipe is going in my cookbook and will be my new go-to! We all LOVED it! I hope you had a wonderful weekend!