Oat flakes simmered in chicken broth and milk with onion, saffron and bay, finished with a splash of white wine. Savoury, not sweet, and the oats thicken it as they go.
Savoury oats
Most English-speaking kitchens meet oats once, at breakfast, cooked in water or milk with sugar on top. This is the other thing they do.
Ten tablespoons of oat flakes go into four cups of chicken broth and two of milk with onion, saffron and bay leaf. Half an hour of simmering and the flakes have broken down almost entirely, leaving a soup with real body and no need for flour or cream to get it.
In Colombia this is an ordinary weekday soup, and avena on a menu is as likely to mean this or a cold drink as it is to mean porridge.
Go carefully with the salt
The recipe used to ask for a tablespoon. That is around eighteen grams for six cups of liquid, four of which are chicken broth that was already salted at the factory, and it made the soup inedible. It now calls for a teaspoon.
Taste at the end, once the oats have thickened and concentrated everything, and add more only if it needs it.
This is the one direction that cannot be reversed. Salt goes in easily and never comes out.
Stir it, or it catches
Oat flakes are heavier than the liquid around them and they settle. Thirty minutes of boiling with a layer of oats sitting against the bottom of the pot is enough to scorch them, and a scorched taste goes through the whole soup.
A stir every few minutes, reaching the bottom with the spoon, is all it needs.
It keeps thickening
Oats absorb liquid long after the heat is off. A soup that is right in the bowl will be noticeably thicker in twenty minutes and closer to porridge by the next day.
That is not a fault, it is what oats do. Add broth or milk when you reheat it and expect to add more than seems necessary.
More soups
- Chicken and rice soup — the same idea with rice.
- Sopa de fideos — the pasta one.
- Crema de pollo — blended instead of thickened.
- Chicken vegetable soup — without the starch.
Oatmeal Soup FAQ
A savoury soup in which oat flakes are simmered in broth and milk rather than water and sugar. The oats dissolve as they cook and thicken the pot, which is what gives it body. In Colombia it is called sopa de avena.
No. It has chicken broth, onion, saffron, bay and salt in it, and a splash of white wine at the end. It is closer to a chowder than to breakfast porridge.
A teaspoon, and then taste. The recipe used to call for a tablespoon, which is around eighteen grams of salt added on top of four cups of chicken broth that came out of a carton already salted. The soup came out inedible. A teaspoon at the start and an adjustment at the end is the right way round.
Yes, now and then. Oat flakes sink, and half an hour of boiling with anything settled on the bottom is how a soup ends up tasting scorched.
Oats keep absorbing liquid even off the heat. What is a soup at the table is closer to porridge the next day. Loosen it with broth or milk when you reheat it.
No, it is marked optional. Shredded chicken turns it into a fuller meal; without it the oats, broth and milk carry it on their own.
Two tablespoons stirred in off the boil, which keeps its sharpness. Added at the start it would simply cook away.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 10 tablespoons oat flakes
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups milk
- 1 teaspoon saffron
- 1 teaspoon ground bay leaf
- 1 tablespoon onion (finely chopped)
- 2 tablespoons white wine
- 1 teaspoon salt (taste at the end and add more if it needs it)
- Shredded chicken (optional, to taste)
- Cilantro (optional, to taste)
Notas
Instructions
- Put the broth, the milk, the oat flakes, the onion, the saffron, the bay leaf, the shredded chicken if you are using it and a teaspoon of salt in a pot over medium heat.
- Let it boil for 30 minutes, stirring now and then so the oats do not settle and catch on the bottom.
- Add the wine, lower the heat, taste and add more salt only if it needs it, and serve hot with cilantro to taste.
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