This Pastina Soup, also known as Italian Penicillin, is so comforting and made up of just a few ingredients. It's super simple to make and is absolutely delicious! Ready in less than one hour and full of flavor.
Italians call this soup Italian Penicillin, because it's their cure for healing sick family members in the house. It truly is the best medicine. Pair it with my Sore Throat Popsicles.
The simplicity of this soup is my favorite, with just a classic mirepoix of vegetables, chicken stock, egg and tiny pastina pasta.
If you love easy soup recipes, try my Vegetable Rice Soup, Dutch Oven Chili, Mini Meatball Soup, and Outback Steakhouse Copycat Baked Potato Soup.
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Why You'll Love This Soup:
- This Pasta Soup is so easy to make with simple ingredients
- It's ready in less than an hour
- This is the Italian version of Chicken Noodle Soup and is great for healing colds or to warm you up on a cold day
- Pair it with some french bread and call it a meal
- The perfect kid friendly soup
For more ideas for kid friendly recipes, try my Pasta and Peas, White Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese, and Chicken Tater Tot Casserole.
Ingredients:
Acini di Pepe (Pastina)-A small, star shaped pasta used in Italian kitchens. It cooks to perfection in this chicken stock for a classic Italian soup recipe. You want to be careful not to overcook this pasta in the broth, as it can bloat and absorb the stock.
Chicken Stock-Rich in depth flavors. Chicken stock uses the bones to flavor the liquid and is highly recommended over chicken broth, which will be more watery in taste. Try this Dutch Oven Chicken Noodle Soup too.
Egg-A traditional ingredient in the Italian cooking of pastina. While we aren't using any extremely accurate methods of tempering, a ladle of hot broth is brought into the egg and combined before adding it to the soup. You will still see some strings of eggs in the broth, and if you don't want that, just leave out the egg. It does bring in some incredible flavors to the broth though and I recommend using the egg for the authentic feel.
Carrot, celery, and onion-This combination is known as a mirepoix and it's fantastic to flavor soups. You want to make sure this is all minced very fine and only use about a tablespoon of each. This Pastina Soup isn't supposed to be full of vegetables. Also, no browning the vegetables in this recipe. We want the broth to remain as clear as possible.
Parmesan Cheese and Black Pepper-While these are optional ingredients to use for toppings, I highly recommend Parmigiano Reggiano for it's delicious nutty flavor. Mix this with black pepper and an almost Cacio e Pepe like taste develops.
*Full recipe ingredients and quantities can be found in the recipe card below.
Substitutions and Variations:
- If you don't want to add in the egg, you can leave it out.
- Making this for the kids? Feel free to leave out the onion and garlic.
- Pastina pasta, or acini di pepe, is what really makes this dish pastina, but an orzo pasta or other small pasta variety can be substituted.
- Add protein by dicing up or shredding one breast of already cooked rotisserie chicken meat and adding it into the soup. Cook it for the last 5 minutes with the egg.
Try this Chicken Soup with Wild Rice and Mushrooms too!
How to Make Pastina Soup:
Step 1: Heat a dutch oven to medium low heat on the stovetop. Add in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and allow it to warm up. Pour in the celery, carrot, onion, garlic and salt, and cook to soften for about 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Step 2: Pour in chicken stock, stir and cover for 10 minutes.
Step 3: Add in the pastina. Cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring halfway through, making sure the pasta isn't sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Step 4: As the pasta is cooking, temper the egg by whisking the egg first. Then, slowly pour in a hot ladle full of the chicken broth from the soup, while still whisking quickly at the same time, to help cook the egg.
Step 5: Pour the tempered egg into the soup. Stir well, then cover the soup for another 5 minutes.
Step 6: The soup is ready to serve! Pull the dutch oven off the heat immediately to avoid the pasta from swelling up in the broth and overcooking.
Step 7: Top with parmesan cheese and black pepper, if desired, and enjoy!
Expert Tips:
- In Step 1, do not brown the vegetables, only soften until translucent. If any browning starts to occur, turn down the heat.
- If you are using the egg, even after tempering it you will see some stringy like pieces in the broth. If you don't want this, leave out the egg.
- As soon as the pasta is finished cooking, immediately pull the dutch oven off the heat to avoid overcooking.
Big on Italian Soup? Try this Chicken Meatball Soup, Chicken Minestrone, and Creamy Tortellini Soup.
Recipe FAQs:
If you add the entire egg into the soup, it will result in large chunks of cooked egg. When tempering the eggs by slowly adding broth, outside of the dutch oven, it will add a nice creamy texture to the broth once added in.
Pastina is the smallest form of pasta made. You will most likely find it as Acini di pepe, boxed dry in the grocery store isle with the other pastas.
To store the pastina, allow it to come to room temperature, then store in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 3 days. To reheat, use the microwave or stovetop.
More Winter Meals You Will Love:
If you tried this Pastina Soup Recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it goes in the 📝 comments below. I love hearing from you!
PrintRecipe
Pastina Soup (Italian Penicillin)
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 4 large bowls 1x
Description
This Pastina Soup is so comforting and made up of just a few ingredients. It's super simple to make and is absolutely delicious! Ready in just one hour and full of flavor.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon carrot, peeled and minced
- 1 tablespoon celery, minced
- 1 tablespoon yellow onion, minced
- 1 small garlic clove, minced
- ¾ teaspoon sea salt
- 48 ounces of chicken stock (1.5 containers)
- ¾ cup dried acini di pepe pasta (pastina pasta)
- 1 egg
- Optional: ¼ teaspoon black pepper + ¼ cup parmigiano reggiano for topping
Instructions
- Heat a dutch oven to medium low heat on the stovetop. Add in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and allow it to warm up. Pour in the celery, carrot, onion, garlic and salt, and cook to soften for about 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Pour in chicken stock, stir and cover for 10 minutes.
- Add in the pastina. Cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring halfway through, making sure the pasta isn't sticking to the bottom of the pot.
- As the pasta is cooking, temper the egg by whisking the egg first. Then, slowly pour in a hot ladle full of the chicken broth from the soup, while still whisking quickly at the same time, to help cook the egg.
- Pour the tempered egg into the soup. Stir well, then cover the soup for another 5 minutes.
- The soup is ready to serve! Pull the dutch oven off the heat immediately to avoid the pasta from swelling up in the broth and overcooking.
- Top with parmesan cheese and black pepper, if desired, and enjoy!
Equipment
Notes
- In Step 1, do not brown the vegetables, only soften until translucent. If any browning starts to occur, turn down the heat.
- If you are using the egg, even after tempering it you will see some stringy like pieces in the broth. If you don't want this, leave out the egg.
- As soon as the pasta is finished cooking, immediately pull the dutch oven off the heat to avoid overcooking.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Category: soup
- Method: stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Sharon says
Followed the directions to a T and it was amazing! Just what I wanted!
Tara Smithson says
Yay!!! One of my favorite cozy soups. Thanks so much for making it and for the review. xoxo~Tara
Renee says
This was super delicious. Such a great winter dish and easily adjusted. Perfectly made 4 bowls as described. I’m a sucker for flavour so I added a load more than the recipe and your directions are well written and easy to follow. The egg is what made me select your recipe over others and I think it makes all the difference. Such a great meal (I added chicken too) and it’s an instant favourite in this Aussie home! Thanks for such a wonderful recipe Tara!
Tara Smithson says
Hi Renee, Thanks so much for the review. I think the egg is so good too and chicken sounds amazing. It makes it more like a meal with the added protein. So glad you enjoyed it!
Darlene says
Enjoyed this! A few things: We like big bowls of soup, especially if they are rather low in protein, so this barely made 3 full bowls for us. Super bummed to not have leftovers, but will make again! I subbed pastina for stars because we had that on hand, I liked that and will probably do that going forward. I didn't fully mince the carrots, celery or onion, just a smaller dice and that was fine, it gave us more to chew on. I was confused by the recipe saying only "1 tablespoon" each of carrots, celery and onion, so I used 3 celery stalks, 2-3 carrots, half a large onion and a big heaping spoon of minced garlic. ONE garlic clove in Italian soup feels like a sin! 😄 Are the amounts as written actually correct? I also axded a tablespoon of roasted chicken better than bouillon to kick up the flavor (and I used low sodium stock.) Lastly, I didn't cook the stars for 15 minutes, the pasta package directions said 7 minutes and I didn't want it to overcook. Was I supposed to overcook the pasta, so it's like a porridge or something? Great recipe and I will whip this up for myself all the time now. (Though my 9 yr old likes a brothier soup, so I gotta figure that out when I make her some.) My husband liked it but it didn't fill him up. Maybe I'll make a salad and bread alongside it next time.
Tara Smithson says
Hi Darlene, thanks so much for the review. The recipe ingredients are written correctly, but this is one of the soups you can add more of if you like. My best friend was Italian and they always had a really heavy pasta ratio (think chicken and stars soup from Campbells) and a small amount of veggies & garlic, so I left the recipe similar. It sounds good how you made it too. Because the heat is on medium low instead of boiling, I like the pasta cooked for 15 minutes..plus, that makes the veggies nice and soft too. Add in some extra chicken stock (a few cups) and maybe a little less vegetables and it will be more broth for your 9 year old 🙂 Thanks again!
Maddie says
This one is so yummy! My two year old even loved it!
Tara Smithson says
Yay! Thanks Maddie. My kids love this one too.