This nutritious chicken noodle pho recipe is the perfect light meal. It's not too challenging to prepare either.
The chicken legs will need to be simmered with ginger, spring onions and spices including cinnamon and star anise. You can even do this in advance and the cooked chicken and broth will keep for three days in a fridge in airtight containers (see GH tip below).
Adding bean sprouts, coriander, mint, lime and chillis will give you a deliciously simple meal packed full of flavour.
Put chicken legs, carrot, star anise and cinnamon into a large pan. With the flat of a knife, press down firmly on ginger to bruise; add to pan with 2 halved spring onions. Cover with 1 litre cold water. Bring to the boil, turn down and simmer for 30-35min until chicken is cooked through. Top up with hot water as needed and skim off any scum.
Step 2
Remove from heat. Lift chicken out with tongs and transfer to a board. With a fork and a sharp knife, carve off as much meat as you can and shred. Discard bones. Strain broth into a large jug, discarding veg and spices. Add the fish sauce, 1tsp salt and the sugar and juice of 1 lime. Stir until dissolved.
Step 3
Boil a kettle. Put dried noodles into a medium bowl, pour over boiling water and leave for 4min. Drain noodles and divide between 4 deep bowls.
Step 4
Finely slice remaining spring onions. Top each noodle bowl with chicken, spring onions, bean sprouts, and herbs. Pour over chicken broth. Serve with remaining lime cut into wedges and chilli, if you like.
Get Ahead: Complete up to the end of step 2. Store broth and shredded meat in separate airtight containers in the fridge for up to 3 days. Transfer both to a pan to reheat, remove meat with slotted spoon, then continue with the recipe.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
