Chickpea Noodle Soup
Chickpea noodle soup is quick and easy vegan comfort food at its finest. Don't shy away from browning the vegetables in the second step. It adds a lot of flavor. And make sure to use a really good vegetable broth.
Calories: 447kcal
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion diced small
- 3 medium carrots diced small
- 3 ribs celery diced small
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 5 garlic cloves minced
- 12 cups 2(840 ml) good vegetable broth
- 2 teaspoons dried herbes de Provence or thyme
- 3 dried bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 12 ounces (340 grams) wide noodles
- 2 15.5- ounce 439-gram cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- ½ cup chopped fresh parsley or scallions
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- In a large (about 7-quart) Dutch oven or other pot with a heavy bottom, warm the oil over medium-high heat.
- Add onion, carrot, celery, and salt. Cook, stirring only occasionally, for about 10 minutes, until tender and lightly browned in spots.
- Stir in garlic and cook for a minute more.
- Add broth, herbes de Provence or thyme, bay leaves, and pepper.
- Bring to a boil over high heat, then cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes.
- While broth simmers, bring a pot of well-salted water to a boil and cook noodles to al dente according to package directions. Drain and toss with a little bit of oil to prevent sticking.
- Off the heat, stir in chickpeas, parsley or scallions, and lemon juice.
- Ladle soup into bowls, adding noodles to individual bowls right before serving.
Video
Notes
- You'll start by dicing the onions, carrot, and celery nice and small (and relatively evenly), then cooking it in the olive oil until everything is tender and a bit browned. Don't shy away from the browning, which adds tons of flavor.
- A good veggie broth makes all the difference here. If you have homemade stock on hand, by all means use that. I typically don't, and that's also 100% fine. Reduced-sodium Imagine No Chicken Broth is my favorite boxed veggie broth by far, since it somehow magically has the flavor profile of a good chicken stock rather than being weirdly red and tasting tinny or sweet, as some other vegetable broths can do.
- Herbes de Provence add the perfect subtle flavor to this recipe. Blends vary but usually contain some combination of savory, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and lavender.
- You can make this dish with canned chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans) or ones you've cooked yourself. The two cans called for in this recipe equal about 3 ½ cups of cooked beans, from one heaping cup dried.
- Use vegan wide noodles, which are modeled after egg noodles but don't contain egg.
- Like most soups, this one only improves as it sits, giving the flavors a chance to mingle. Since you'll cook the noodles separately and add them to each serving, they won't soak up the broth before you have a chance to do so yourself.
- Leftover soup and noodles will keep well in separate airtight containers in the fridge for a week. Reheat in the microwave or on the stovetop.
Nutrition
Calories: 447kcal | Carbohydrates: 77.7g | Protein: 16.4g | Fat: 8.8g | Fiber: 11g