This Creamy Chicken Gnocchi Soup is thick, creamy, and filled with fabulous flavors. It’s a hearty soup very similar to the Olive Garden chicken gnocchi soup, with a few of Chef Jenn’s twists to make it just a wee bit more delicious. Hungry? Read on and let’s get cooking!
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Loaded with tender chicken, savory spinach, and plump, fluffy gnocchi, this thick, rich, and indulgent soup is a must-try for soup fans!
What You Need To Make Chicken Gnocchi Soup
- Olive oil
- Butter
- Celery
- Onion
- Garlic
- White wine (optional)
- All purpose flour
- Chicken broth – make your own (see below)
- Chicken – see notes below
- Dried thyme
- Carrot
- Gnocchi
- Spinach
- Cream
- Salt and pepper
Chicken Broth in Soups
I love to make my own chicken broth, and it’s so easy! Just save raw chicken bones and toss them into a pot with carrot, onion, garlic, celery, and a few bay leaves. Top the pot off with water, and simmer for a few hours.
Of course, you can get cheffy and brown the bones in a hot oven before making the broth, but this soup is loaded with flavor and doesn’t need that extra step.
Another option is to save the carcass from a rotisserie chicken. You know, the kind you get in a grocery store? Pop all those bones and bits of skin and fat into a pot. Add the veggies, top off with water, and simmer for a few hours. The flavor is much more robust than just using raw bones, and without having to roast the bones.
No time to make your own? Use low or no-sodium chicken broth to control the sodium. Your favorite store brand will work, just read the ingredients! There should be no added flavors, colors, or starches in chicken broth!
What Kind of Chicken To Make Chicken Gnocchi Soup
You can cook some chicken just for this recipe, and I used to do just that back in my restaurant days. We’d season and bake pounds and pounds of chicken, then cut it up for this and other soups, but that’s a lot of extra work.
These days, when I’m just feeding my family, I use leftover rotisserie chicken. You can buy vacuum-sealed bags of just chicken meat from some Costcos. I keep this in my freezer and just take off what I need for soups, sandwiches, chicken salad, and more. You can’t beat the convenience!
Leftover grilled or baked chicken will also work. If you want to cook your own chicken for this recipe, dice up about a pound of chicken breast and add it to the sauteed veggies. Cook it through and continue on with the recipe from there.
How To Make Chicken Gnocchi Soup
This soup starts like many other soups by sweating a combination of veggies. Often, we add carrots to the mix, but I love shredding the carrot and adding it near the end of the cooking time.
- Heat the olive oil and butter in a medium-sized soup pot over medium heat. Add the celery, onion, and garlic.
- Cook the veggies, stirring often, for 4-5 minutes or until the onion is soft and translucent. Deglaze with white wine (optional).
- Turn off the heat, and with a whisk, whisk in the flour. When the flour is all combined, add the heated broth in a slow stream, whisking as you pour to avoid floury lumps.
- When the broth is all incorporated, turn the heat back to medium and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
- Add the gnocchi, chicken, carrot, and spinach and bring it back to a boil. Simmer for another 5 minutes.
- Add the cream and heat the soup through. Season with salt and pepper and serve piping hot!
Chef Jenn’s Tips
- Use rotisserie chicken to make this soup easy.
- Washed baby spinach cooks quickly in this soup – you’ll need about 4 ounces. Don’t worry if it seems like so much spinach! It’ll cook down and disappear into the soup.
- The wine adds a lovely bit of acidity to this soup which really helps the flavors shine.
- Don’t overcook the soup! This soup doesn’t need hours and hours to simmer.
- Once the gnocchi start floating in the soup, you know they’re cooked.
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What To Serve With This Creamy Chicken Soup
Pair your favorite sandwich with this hearty soup, or keep it lighter with a nice salad. Or, my favorite way to enjoy soup, serve it as an appetizer followed by tasty meals like a hearty steak cooked on a Blackstone griddle, Smoked Lamb Chops, or your favorite roasted meat.
Can You Freeze this Chicken Gnocchi Soup Recipe?
Heck yes! In fact, there’s almost always some in my freezer.
My favorite way to freeze soups and stews is using Souper Cubes! These amazing freezer-safe cubes are perfect for freezing portions of all my favorite soups, stews, and other saucy meals. I freeze them then pop them out and put the rectangular frozen blocks into a zipper-top freezer bag. It makes storing them SOOOO much easier!
Keep food fresh and freezer tidy with odor-proof, space-saving trays. Designed for easy stacking and maximum efficiency, store up to 8 cups in a gallon bag.
Frequently Asked questions
Yes! Even with chopping the veggies, this soup can be ready to eat in about 30 minutes. You don’t need any fancy equipment, and all the ingredients are pretty common.
Yes! You can lighten things up by using milk, and to keep it dairy free skip the butter and add coconut milk at the end of the cooking time, instead of the cream.
If you use milk instead of cream you can lower the fat content of this soup. It is, however, higher in carbs (thanks to the gnocchi and flour) which means it isn’t a great choice for a keto or low-carb diet. However, it’s got lots of spinach and veggies in it, so it’s got nutritional value.
Step By Step Process
Chicken Gnocchi Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablepsoon butter
- 1 cup diced celery
- 1 cup diced onion
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1/4 cup white wine optional
- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 6 cups low or no sodium chicken broth
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2 cups cooked chicken diced
- 1 pound gnocchi
- 1 cup carrot
- 4 ounces baby spinach
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil and butter in a medium-size soup pot over medium heat. Add the celery, onion, and garlic.
- Cook the veggies, stirring often, for 4-5 minutes or until the onion is soft and translucent. Deglaze with the white wine (optional).
- Turn off the heat and with a whisk, whisk in the flour. When the flour is all combined, add the heated broth in a slow stream, whisking as you pour to avoid floury lumps.
- When the broth is all incorporated, turn the heat back to medium and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
- Add the gnocchi, chicken, carrot, and spinach and bring it back to a boil. Simmer for another 5 minutes or until the gnocchi start to float.
- Add the cream and heat the soup through. Season with salt and pepper and serve piping hot!
Nutrition
A Note on Nutritional Information
Nutritional information for this recipe is provided as a courtesy and is calculated based on available online ingredient information. It is only an approximate value. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site cannot be guaranteed.
Fantastic! This is the ultimate comfort food!
Extremely tasty and yes I used the white wine option!
I love having the option of using rotisserie chicken when making this creamy chicken gnocchi soup!! An easy and delicious soup!!
As soon as I saw this chicken gnocchi recipe, I knew I had to make it and it didn’t disappoint!
Oh, this looks like comfort in a bowl. YUM!
I think this is the BEST use of Gnocci EVER! So tasty and filling, perfection!
This was a hit at our weekly Sunday family dinner.
i cannot see where you add the chicken , despite having re-read the receipe many times….
My apologies! I have fixed the recipe and the post. Because the chicken is cooked, you really only need to add it at the end of the cooking time. Thanks for pointing this out! ~Jenn