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This quick and easy recipe for Italian Chicken Gnocchi Soup is creamy, cozy and very satisfying. With both a short ingredient list and cook time, this is an ideal weeknight dinner for those who love good food.
My love for developing soup recipes started back when I worked as an Assistant Editor at Cuisine at Home magazine. One of my favorite projects was working on our Special Interest Books—especially the soup issues. Each new issue meant testing and fine-tuning a hundred different soups.
Of all the soups I’ve developed, chicken soup has always been the one I return to again and again because it’s endlessly adaptable. It can be light and brothy like my Chicken Cabbage Soup, herby an aromatic, like this Chicken and Rice Soup, or creamy and cozy like this chicken and gnocchi soup.
That versatility is exactly why chicken soups show up so often in my kitchen. They’re familiar but flexible—ready to be reinvented in all kinds of delicious ways.
What is Gnocchi and How Do I Make it?
Gnocchi [NYOH-kee], which means “dumplings” in Italian, are best described as a cross between pasta and dumplings. Like chicken soup, there are endless varieties of gnocchi (sweet potato, ricotta, pumpkin, cornmeal, buckwheat, etc.) and the most recognizable being potato gnocchi.
Really good gnocchi are light, pillowy and delicate. This is generally achieved with a pasta dough made mostly of potatoes and very little flour (less flour means less gluten, which means a softer gnocchi).
The process of making gnocchi is laborious but enjoyable. If you plan to make the gnocchi, use this recipe for Homemade Gnocchi I developed with my colleague Pam Killeen while at Cuisine at Home.
Otherwise, I find for a quick weeknight soup like this, it’s best to just grab a package of pre-made, shelf-stable gnocchi. The convenience of having a package stashed in the pantry at any given time outweighs the benefits of homemade gnocchi when it’s used in a soup.
Ingredients for Chicken and Gnocchi Soup
This is a quick rundown of the ingredients you’ll need and some corresponding notes. Find the full recipe, with amounts, in the recipe card below.
- Dried Herbs and Spices: For this soup you’ll only need some dried Italian seasoning and kosher salt. If you don’t have Italian seasoning on hand, you can use a combo of dried rosemary, thyme, oregano and basil.
- Butter: for cooking the vegetables. You can also use olive oil.
- Mirepoix: carrots, onion and celery.
- Garlic: fresh is always best. You’ll need at least 4 large cloves of garlic to get 1 tablespoon minced.
- Chicken broth: use a homemade chicken broth, low-sodium boxed chicken broth or a broth base, such as Better than Bouillon.
- Gnocchi: I recommend using shelf-stable gnocchi. You can also use refrigerated gnocchi.
- Milk: I prefer whole milk—it’s creamy without being overly thick. If you prefer a creamier, more decadent soup, use half-and-half.
- Chicken: You’ll need a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast. The chicken cooks in the simmering soup and then gets shredded—no extra pots or pans needed.
- Spinach: a few cups of chopped fresh spinach adds some veg and some color. You can also use kale—just chop it a little finer.
How to Make Creamy Chicken Gnocchi Soup
Here is a quick rundown of how to make this gnocchi chicken soup along with a few tips that will help you perfect the recipe. For the full recipe, with timings, jump down to the recipe card.
- Cook the carrots, celery and onion down until starting to soften.
- Add the flour, garlic and Italian seasoning and cook just until fragrant.
- Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Then add the chicken, bring to a simmer and cook until the chicken is cooked through.
TIP: it’s important to gradually add in the chicken broth to the flour-coated vegetables. Adding the broth in small increments, and stirring after each addition, ensures that the flour gets incorporated evenly and the broth is silky smooth.
- Remove the chicken and transfer to a sheet pan to cool.
- Stir in the gnocchi and spinach.
TIP: make sure you break up the gnocchi as you add it to the soup. They have a tendency to stick together.
- Shred chicken using two forks and add back to the pot with the milk.
Tips for Making this Soup
- Once the milk has been added, don’t let the soup come to a boil. If it does, the milk will split and make the soup look chunky (safe to eat but not appealing).
- To cut down on the cook time, feel free to use pre-cooked and shredded chicken instead of chicken breast. This will reduce the simmer time to just 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are as tender as you’d like.
- Play around with the vegetables you add to the soup. I will sometimes add frozen peas or frozen green beans. Lima beans, corn or oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes would also be delicious.
Italian Chicken Gnocchi Soup Recipe
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Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 3 large carrots, cut into ¾-inch pieces (2 cups)
- 3 large stalks celery, cut into ¾-inch pieces (1 ½ cups)
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- Kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 (17-ounce) pacakge shelf-stable gnocchi
- 1½ cups whole milk, warmed
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
- 2 cups chopped spinach
Instructions
- Melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add 2 cups carrots, 1½ cups celery and 1 diced onion, season with 1 teaspoon salt and cook until starting to soften, about 5 minutes.
- Add 2 tablespoons flour, 1 tablespoon garlic and 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.
- Gradually add in 5 cups chicken broth, stirring after each addition to ensure flour mixture loosens and blends into broth smoothly.
- Bring to a boil, add 1 pound chicken breasts; reduce heat and simmer until chicken is cooked through, 15–20 minutes. Using tongs, transfer chicken to a sheetpan or plate to cool.
- Reduce heat to medium-low and stir in 1 package gnocchi and 2 cups spinach; cook 2–3 minutes.
- Once chicken is cool enough to handle, shred chicken using two forks and add back to pot.
- Stir in 1½ cups milk and season to taste with additional salt as needed.
Such a warm comforting soup for these cold evenings. I love the big chunks of veggies and the gnocchi is a great change from pasta. It elevates the bowl a bit!