Chicken Udon Soup 1/21

I was completely intrigued by this healthy soup with "fancy" mushrooms.  It looked simple, but had some ingredients I had never used before... like star anise, and while I have certainly eaten udon noodles, I'm not sure I had ever actually cooked with them.  Don't quote me on that one, but it may be true!  I was a little nervous when I opened the spice bottle of the star anise because it reeked of black licorice, which is one of the few things in the world that I won't eat, but I decided it was worth a try in this broth.

I followed the Cooking Light Recipe almost to a T this time.  Let me tell you, the broth that this creates is out of this world good.  So incredibly rich and flavorful it does not seem like a water based broth. I did make a slight modification to the recipe in that I wanted more veggies incorporated so I added in a good handful of baby spinach leaves on top of the udon noodles before pouring the broth and chicken in.


The other fun part about this was when I was wrapping up the leftovers, I decided to use one of those tall round chinese food containers, and when I put this in, it looked just like a takeout soup you might get from a real chinese place with the udon noodles, chicken and spinach all piled in there.

Another recipe I would definitely recommend!