Tyler Florence Elevates Chicken Noodle Soup With One Overlooked Vegetable

Beloved celebrity chef Tyler Florence appreciates the comforting, warming, and soul-soothing powers of chicken soup as much as the rest of us. He refers to his recipe for chicken noodle soup as "grandma style" on a Food 911 show from Food Network, invoking the tried-and-true chicken soup recipes passed down through the generations. However, an overlooked vegetable chef Florence uses to elevate chicken noodle soup is one most classic recipes probably don't have. Turnips are his secret weapon for a more flavorful chicken noodle soup.

A hearty winter root vegetable with a long shelf life, turnip has a flavor reminiscent of a rutabaga, with a spicy, slightly bitter, and earthy profile. It will give a concentrated savory and peppery flavor to elevate chicken noodle soup. Chef Florence doesn't add turnip to the finished soup, however, but uses it as a flavor agent for his homemade chicken stock. To make this, he adds quartered turnips and the classic mirepoix of carrots, celery, and onions to a large poaching pot like this large round Dutch oven from Crock Pot with a whole raw chicken, peppercorns, a head of garlic, and herbs, covering everything with water before covering and simmering the stock for an hour or more.

As the turnip cooks, it will get a little sweeter with enhanced pepper and nutty notes. The stock and the chicken later used shredded into the chicken noodle soup will both be infused with the extra savory boost from the turnips. Florence compiles his soup by sauteeing more celery, onion, and carrots, and adding that turnip-infused stock plus noodles, herbs, and the shredded chicken meat.

We have plenty of chicken noodle soup recipes you can elevate with turnip, taking Tyler Florence's lead. For example, you can add quartered turnips to this recipe for classic slow cooker chicken noodle soup recipe during the step that you add the carrots, celery, herbs, parmesan rind, and water to the slow cooker pot. Then, you can remove the turnips when you remove the stemmed herbs and parmesan rind.

You can even use turnips if you're taking a shortcut by using this Pacific bone or Pacific free-range chicken broth and a rotisserie chicken as we do in our recipe for easy chicken noodle soup. Turnips will still effectively season the store-bought, premade ingredients as you simmer them together. You can saute the turnips with the mirepoix to expedite the process of blooming its flavors before building the rest of the soup.

If you want to use turnips in the stock and the soup, they'd be a flavor and texture upgrade to this recipe for chicken meatball soup with penne and chard. They'll need a bit more prep than simply quartering, but you can add small chunks of turnips to the vegetable and aromatic base of the soup. Boiled or simmered turnips will have a soft, velvety texture that'll soak up the flavorful broth.