Elevate Your Canned Chicken Noodle Soup With This Common Ingredient Everyone Has

While the best store-bought chicken noodle soups are plenty fulfilling all on their own, there's no denying the innate foodie urge to make prepared food special. Today, we're looking at a near-effortless spin on hacking that can o' comfort food sitting in your pantry. We're telling you that lemon is the single-ingredient answer.

Adding acid to a dish is a pro-level hack to brighten and balance flavors, and lemon, in particular,  has long been used as an acidic element in cooking. In chicken soup, lemon has a way of cutting through the meaty richness of a good broth and elevating each distinct nuance of the soup — the salty, the umami, and the vegetal. As a bonus, the mouth-puckering pop of lemon plays very well with chicken soup. The broth tames the sourness while leaving behind an inimitable, sunshine-y flair that you'll fall for.

Squeezing lemon into chicken soup is not a step without precedent. Avgolemono, or Greek lemon orzo soup, isn't just a starter that you might cop when you order takeout. Its fascinating origins stretch all the way back in the Middle Ages, when lemons became popular as a newly-cultivated crop. Sephardic Jews in the Mediterranean played with their tangy flavor first in a sauce, and, eventually, as part of an iconic chicken soup with near-universal appeal.

The juice of lemons is the most logical addition to a bowl of brothy soup, but don't discount lemon zest for a more floral, faintly lemony addition. To lend a real citrus punch, use both. You'd be surprised how much juice you can get from one lemon, but feel free to augment your canned soup with as much or as little as you'd like. Tasting your soup as you go is essential. You can always add more lemon juice, after all, but it's nearly impossible to temper a too-sour soup if you squeeze in too much! Commercial lemon juice will work in a pinch, we suppose, but it's no match for fresh-squeezed. If you want to really concentrate the lemon flavor in your soup, simmer it for a while with the whole lemon rind to really extract the flavors.

Adding lemon all by itself will elevate your canned soup, but you can really take it over the top with a few bonus additions if you happen to have them lying around. Turmeric is one add-in that can instantly upgrade canned chicken noodle soup. Lemon and garlic are a match made in culinary Heaven, so don't hesitate to throw some into your pot. Fresh dill and lemon make up another power couple in a pot, and the bounty from your windowsill garden will sing in your soup. A splash of wine will really amp the acidity for those who love it, while a few tablespoons of cream will have a mellowing effect. With lemon as its new star, your chicken soup is going to ascend to the next level, and your easy weeknight dinners will never be the same.