Chicken Gnocchi Soup

I first discovered that gnocchi IN soup existed years ago through my first bowl of Chicken Gnocchi Soup – my mind was immediately blown. What is there not to love about soft, pillowy gnocchi floating around in a creamy soup with big pieces of shredded chicken?

Our copycat version of Olive Garden’s Chicken Gnocchi Soup is simple, but still packs a major flavor punch. The ingredients are easy to find and this soup comes together in under an hour. It’s a very hearty soup that we absolutely love having on a chilly day.

How to Make Our Chicken Gnocchi Soup Recipe

Process

1. Place butter in a large saucepan and melt over medium-high heat. Add onion, celery, carrots, and garlic, season with salt and pepper and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes or until vegetables begin to turn translucent.
2. Add thyme and sage and continue to sauté for 1 minute.

3. Add flour.
4. Stir together and cook for about 2 minutes, continuing to stir to remove the raw flour flavor.

5. Whisk stock into the vegetable-flour mixture and stir until no lumps remain. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes or until the mixture begins to thicken. Stir milk into the soup mixture.
6. Add the shredded chicken. Season with salt and pepper. Stir together and Simmer soup for about 15 minutes or until the soup thickens.

7. Add gnocchi.
8. Stir together and continue to simmer for 5 to 7 minutes or until gnocchi have cooked through. Add more salt and pepper as needed, stir and serve.

Tools You Will Need

• cutting board
• knife
• liquid measuring cup
• dry measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• pot
• whisk
• wooden spoon

How to Make Gnocchi

Gnocchi is a lot easier to make than most people think, but it does take a bit of time and effort. The general steps to making homemade gnocchi are:

1. baking potatoes until soft and tender
2. peeling the baked potatoes and running them through a potato ricer
3. mixing them with eggs, flour, grated Parmesan and salt into a dough
4. rolling the dough into a long, thin snake
5. cutting the rolled dough into small pieces
6. scoring them with a fork or rolling them over a pasta paddle

You can find our full recipe for homemade gnocchi here! You certainly don’t have to make our own gnocchi for our Chicken Gnocchi Soup. There are plenty of delicious and readily available options for pre-made gnocchi at local grocery stores.

Is This Recipe Exactly Like Olive Garden Chicken Gnocchi Soup?

Our copycat recipe is very similar in texture and flavor to Olive Garden’s version. The major differences are that we:

• Dice our carrots instead of shredding them – we do this so they cook evenly with the onion and celery.
• Omit the spinach – we did this just to keep the recipe simple.
• Add sage – for a little more depth of flavor.

Variations

• Make this recipe vegetarian by replacing the chicken for sliced cremini mushrooms and the chicken stock for vegetable stock.
• Stir in leafy greens like spinach or kale.
• Mix up the herbs by adding a touch of rosemary or fresh basil!
• For a thinner soup add an extra cup of chicken stock.
• Chicken broth can be used in place of chicken stock.
• We use a mix of dark and light chicken, but you can use all chicken breast or all dark meat.
• Make this recipe even more decadent by replacing the milk with half and half or heavy cream and adding some crumbled Italian sausage.

Tips and Tricks for Our Chicken Gnocchi Soup Recipe

• Buy a rotisserie chicken from your local market and shred it up! We do this often for a variety of recipes because it saves so much time!
• Like we mentioned above, you can totally use store bought gnocchi for this recipe, if you want to save on some time!
• Cut vegetables into same sized pieces for even cooking.
• Keep once the milk is added to the soup, keep the heat to a steady simmer and frequently stir to prevent soup from separating.

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