Soups on!! We went to Olive Garden last week and their Chicken and Gnocchi Soup is SOOOOO good that we just had to try and make our own at home. Everyone loved it — including the two kiddos and Mr. Whisk Together!
The temperature now is 60 degrees in St. Louis, so I say we can have soup! Hot and delicious, you can make a big batch and then ladle it into your bowl whenever your heart desires. Like most soup, this reheats well in the microwave. Gnocchi was not as hard to find as I thought. I found small gnocchi in the pasta section of my grocery store. It is a lot of gnocchi – more than I could use in one batch of soup – so I froze half the gnocchi package in a ziplock bag and it worked like a charm! So if your gnocchi bag is more than you can handle – freeze it! Mine was frozen over 6 months and still tasted great in the second batch of soup.
Trader Joe’s also carries (or used to carry) cauliflower gnocchi as well.
This version is a lighter Olive Garden soup copycat. I used all of the same ingredients that they use, but with less salt, butter and cream than the original. The chicken required needs to be cooked before adding to the soup – so I use my Instant Pot to cook 3-4 chicken breasts at a time and use 3 for the soup and one for lunches later. Simply add a cup of water to the pot with the chicken. Put it on “seal” and press the “poultry” button. Or you can use a rotisserie chicken instead! Or precooked chicken from the freezer case!
Enjoy!
Chicken Gnocchi Soup
Ingredients
- 1 Tb. olive oil
- 1/2 onion, diced small
- 2 stalks celery, thinly sliced or diced
- 3 carrots, diced small *or chop up about 3/4 cup of baby carrots
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 large cooked chicken breast, cut into 1/2" pieces
- 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
- 6 cups chicken broth, low sodium
- 16 ounces potato gnocchi
- 2 cups milk, low fat or whole or half and half
- 1 cup fresh spinach, chopped
Instructions
- In a large pot or Dutch Oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the diced onion, celery and carrots. Stir and cook until the onion is translucent - about 5 minutes.
- Add the minced garlic and stir 30 seconds.
- Add the chicken breast and thyme. Stir gently for a minute to reheat the chicken if you are using precooked chicken from the fridge. Or you do not need to warm the chicken if it was precooked and never got cold
- Add the broth and milk. Turn the heat up to medium-high and let the soup come up to a boil.
- Turn the heat down to medium and add the gnocchi. Cook the gnocchi for 3 minutes if fresh or 5 minutes if frozen.
- Add the milk and spinach. Continue to heat through and cook over medium heat until nice and hot. Add salt and pepper to taste!
