Easy 30-Minute Homemade Tortellini Chicken Noodle Soup

I went back to the church kitchen this week. Tuesday afternoon. Nobody was there. I went alone, with a key and a purpose and the specific terror of a woman returning to the place where her identity lives after her identity has been shattered. The kitchen was clean. The church women have been keeping it clean, the way I keep it clean, because I taught them and the teaching stuck. The counters were wiped. The stove was spotless. The spice shelf was organized, though Mable had put the paprika next to the cinnamon again, and I moved it back, and the moving was the first normal thing I have done in four months and the normalcy of it almost broke me.

I stood in the church kitchen for twenty minutes without cooking anything. I stood at the stove I have stood at for twenty-four years and I put my hands on the counter and I breathed. The kitchen smelled like bleach and steel and the ghost of a thousand meals — my meals, every one of them, from the first Wednesday supper in 1994 to the last one before Marcus died. The kitchen remembered. Kitchens remember everything. They remember the steam and the smoke and the laughter and the prayers and the plates served to the living and the repasts served for the dead. This kitchen has done both. This kitchen has fed funerals and weddings and baptisms and Thanksgivings and ordinary Wednesdays, and it has done all of it with my hands, and my hands are here again, on the counter, ten fingers, two palms, one cook who has been away and has come back.

I did not cook that day. I was not ready. But I went back on Thursday. And on Thursday I made a pot of chicken soup. Just soup. Chicken, carrots, celery, onion, broth, noodles. The simplest thing the church kitchen can produce. I made enough for twenty. I left it in the refrigerator with a note that said: for Wednesday supper. And I went home.

Wednesday, the women found the soup. Sister Mable called me. She said Mother Simms, there is soup in the refrigerator with your handwriting on it. I said yes, Sister Mable, that is my soup. She said are you coming back. And I said: I am coming back. Not all the way. Not yet. But I made soup and the soup is in the refrigerator and the making and the leaving are the beginning of the coming back and the beginning is enough for now.

Calvin held my hand when I told him. He did not say a word. He held my hand the way he holds my hand during the altar call — firmly, steadily, as if the holding is the prayer. And it is. The holding is always the prayer. The holding is how Calvin says I love you and I see you and you are brave. He does not need to use words. After twenty-five years, the hand says everything.

The soup I made that Thursday was as plain and honest as I could make it — nothing to hide behind, nothing to prove. When I went looking for the recipe to share here, I wanted the one closest to what my hands already know: chicken, a good broth, vegetables that soften the way grief softens, and noodles that say you are home. This tortellini chicken noodle soup is that recipe. It comes together in thirty minutes, it feeds a crowd, and it asks nothing of you that you are not already able to give. That matters more than people know.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
3 stalks celery, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups cooked chicken, shredded (rotisserie works well)
9 ounces refrigerated cheese tortellini
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Salt to taste
Fresh parsley, chopped, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Sauté the vegetables. Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened — about 5 to 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook one minute more until fragrant.
Add the broth and seasonings. Pour in the chicken broth and stir in the thyme, dried parsley, and black pepper. Raise the heat to medium-high and bring the broth to a gentle boil.
Add the chicken and tortellini. Stir in the shredded chicken and the cheese tortellini. Cook according to the tortellini package directions, usually 5 to 7 minutes, until the tortellini are tender and cooked through.
Taste and adjust. Season with salt as needed. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh parsley if desired. Serve hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Easy 30-Minute Homemade Tortellini Chicken Noodle Soup — The Soup That Brought Me Back