What is Italian Penicillin Soup?

You’ve likely heard of the rustic Italian wedding soup with adorably tiny meatballs or the classic, vegetable-based minestrone or maybe even ribollita soup, which is the perfect way to use up stale bread. One soup you may not be familiar with, however, is Italian penicillin. Unlike the powerful antibiotic itself or even pungent, veiny blue cheese, there’s no actual penicillin or medicine to be found in this soothing soup. But a steaming bowl is sure to provide comfort and nutrition if you’re under the weather. S

Sometimes known as pastina soup, pastina in brodo, or Italian nonna soup (“nonna” means “grandmother” in Italian), this dish gets it’s name from the idea that the soup will cure your illness, similar to the antibiotic penicillin. And it’s one of our favorite comforting dishes from around the globe to eat when you’re sick. At first glance, Italian penicillin may seem like a regular take on chicken noodle, but the textures and pasta are very different. Making the dish starts off in about the same way as most — with vegetables like onion, carrots, garlic, and celery simmering in a flavorful broth, usually chicken. If you don’t have broth or stock on hand, vegetable or chicken bouillon paste, powder, or cubes are a great way to bring a lot of flavor to the liquid as the vegetables cook. Most recipes call for a few sprigs of hearty herbs like rosemary or thyme to bring more depth of flavor to the broth.

After the vegetables have softened, however, is where the soup takes a turn. They are removed from the broth and then pureed in a blender before being poured back into the pot, which thickens the liquid and gives it a silky, full-bodied texture as well as an incredible deep flavor. The soup sometimes contains shredded chicken, which tends to come from a rotisserie chicken for convenience. If you’d rather cook the meat yourself, you can simmer a breast or two in the broth along with the vegetables. Once it’s fully cooked, remove the chicken from the pot and shred it as soon as it’s cool enough to handle.

Rather than using wide, curly egg noodles normally found in chicken noodle soup, this Italian version usually uses pastina, which is a very tiny pasta, sometimes called stelline if it’s shaped into little stars. The pasta doesn’t take long to cook, so it’s added directly into the pureed broth and cooks in the simmering soup. Once the pastina is cooked, the shredded chicken is added to the pot to warm through. Like any good Italian dish, it’s finished with a healthy dose of shredded parmesan cheese to finish, and you can add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice for brightness. If you have one lying around in the back of a refrigerator drawer, a Parmesan rind is a great ingredient to toss in the pot at the beginning to add even more flavor and a nice hint of umami.