This recipe for Creamy Chicken and Gnocchi Soup will impress your whole family with its flavor and color. While you may enjoy making gnocchi from scratch, you can also use the shortcut of buying frozen gnocchi to speed up preparation time on busy days.
This recipe for Chicken and Gnocchi Soup walks you through the process of making gnocchi by hand yourself. This process can be time-consuming, although we give you a shortcut of making it with instant potato flakes.
However, if you are not interested in making gnocchi or you just don’t have the time to mess with it, you can find frozen gnocchi in the freezer department of your local grocery store. Just skip all of the parts of the recipe that describe the making of the gnocchi if you choose to use the shortcut of store-bought gnocchi.
Creamy Chicken and Gnocci Soup Recipe
Our recipe for Chicken and Gnocchi Soup is thick, creamy, and hearty enough for the biggest eaters in your family. A recipe this delicious seems like it should take hours to make. And if you want to spend the afternoon making gnocchi from scratch, we have included those instructions. But, if you don’t, we have described a few shortcuts that you can take to have this scrumptious soup on the table in no time.
Equipment
- Large bowl
- Wooden Spoon
- Freezer Bag
- Large Pot
- Skillet
Ingredients
Ingredients for the Gnocchi
- 1 cup Water
- 1 pc Egg
- 1 teaspoon Softened Butter
- 1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Dried Parseley
- 1 cup Flour
- 2 cups Instant Potato Flakes
Ingredients for the Soup
- 4 pcs Boneless and Skinless Chicken Breasts
- 1 stalk Chopped Celery
- 2 teaspoons Minced Garlic
- 1 teaspoon Onion Powder
- 2 pcs Carrots grated
- 2 tbsp Cooking Oil
- 4 cups Chicken Broth
- 1 teaspoon Dried Thyme
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 2 cups Half and Half
- 1 cup Frozen Spinach
Instructions
- To make the gnocchi from scratch, in a large bowl with a wire whisk, stir together the water, egg, butter, garlic powder, salt, and parsley. Mix it well.
- With a large wooden spoon stir in the potato flakes and the flour. This should make a large dough ball.
- If it’s still really sticky, add a spoonful or two of extra flour to absorb the extra moisture.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.
- Shape the dough into a large oval, and divide the oval into four equal pieces.
- Roll each piece into a snake that is about a half-inch in diameter.
- Using a sharp knife, cut the snake into one inch long bits.
- Take each bit of the dough and gently form it into an oval or football shape.
- Using a fork, gently make a set of indentations on each piece of gnocchi.
- Repeat this process with the remainder of the dough and set the gnocchi aside until you are ready to use them.
- About half of the gnocchi can be put in a zip-top freezer bag and frozen for future use.
- To create the soup, first, cook the chicken breasts by poaching them in hot water on the stovetop.
- Place the chicken breasts in a pot on the stove and cover them with water. Bring the water to a rolling boil over medium-high heat.
- Turn off the heat, put the lid on the pot, and let it sit on the warm stove eye for about twenty minutes.
- After the time is up, remove the chicken from the pot and put it on a plate to cool.
- When it’s cool enough to manage, shred the chicken with your fingers into bite-sized pieces. Set the chicken aside.
- In a large dutch oven, heat the cooking oil over medium-high heat.
- Add the celery and carrots, cooking and stirring until the veggies are soft, about five to ten minutes.
- Add the garlic and saute until the garlic is a light golden brown.
- Add the chicken, the chicken broth, thyme, and salt, bringing the soup to a boil.
- Gently stir in the gnocchi.
- Reduce the heat to a low simmer and cook the gnocchi for about ten minutes.
- Stir in the half and a half and the frozen spinach and heat the soup through.
- Taste, adding salt and pepper as needed.
Notes
Making gnocchi will bring you back to your preschool days when you played with playdough. The texture is so similar, that a small child will probably envy you. In fact, this is a recipe that the kids can actually be helpful in making, at least the part where you are shaping the gnocchi.
Even a toddler can learn to shape the gnocchi and press the fork on them to make the decorative indentations. When you get the whole family involved, it probably won’t take long to finish the whole batch.
Our gnocchi recipe makes about twice as much as you will need. Take the extra gnocchi and put it in a zip-top freezer bag and freeze it for the next time that you want to make this recipe. It will keep in the freezer for up to six months.
Another time-saving technique that you can use is to skip poaching your own chicken breast and instead, use a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken that you can also purchase at your local supermarket. Just pick the meat off of the bones and skip cooking the raw chicken. For this recipe, you will probably just need about half of the chicken, so it is actually a great way to use up any leftover rotisserie chicken that you had from dinner a night or two back.
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Key Ingredients: Cream Cheese
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