All You Need Is Pasta To Make Canned Soup A Hearty Meal

A can of soup makes for an inexpensive, light, and easy meal that's ready in just a few minutes. These quick meals are always convenient, but they aren't always that filling. They're typically low-calorie and low-volume, and while they're perfect for throwing together a fast lunch, they can leave your stomach growling later in the day.

It's not difficult to doctor up a canned soup to make it a more filling and wholesome meal. Leftover ingredients from the fridge can be tossed in to augment the soup and add protein or other much-needed nutrients. One way to do this is by adding in some starch. Pasta and other grains, such as rice, are likewise inexpensive but add a bit of bulk and fiber to the soup, increasing satiety. These grains can either be cooked directly into the soup with a few extra adjustments or cooked separately and added in later.

Pasta makes for a classic soup add-in that's easily accessible and can be ready in as little as 8 or so minutes. If you have leftover pasta in the fridge, that makes things even simpler: stir the pasta into the hot soup to reheat and enjoy. 

With dry pasta, either cook the noodles separately according to package instructions or cook them directly into the soup as it heats. Be aware, though, that pasta will absorb the liquid in the soup; add a little extra water, or better yet, some chicken stock to bulk out the amount of liquid and give the pasta something to soak in.

Small pasta shapes such as fusilli, macaroni, rigatoni, penne, and ditalini work well in canned soup. Egg noodles will also work and taste especially good in chicken-based soups. Long noodles can work, too, though instead of spaghetti, reach for something like vermicelli.

Just like pasta, other varieties of grains can upgrade canned soup to make it a complete meal. These grains can also provide extra nutritional value beyond what pasta can impart.

Rice is a common soup accompaniment that can both be mixed directly into the broth, or served alongside thicker soups as a sort of side dish. White rice will work, but using brown rice is even more ideal nutritionally, as it's high in dietary fiber, magnesium, antioxidants, and a host of other vitamins and minerals. Wild rice is also a great soup choice, rich in manganese and dietary fiber.

Another grain that works well in canned soup is barley. Fluffy, chewy, and delicious when stirred into a chicken or beef soup, barley comes in both hulled and pearled forms and boasts plenty of fiber and nutrients like iron, thiamine, phosphorous, and selenium.

Often, grains take much longer than pasta to cook — ideally, cook them separately from your soup, then add them in when you're ready to eat.