Creamy Chicken and Chickpea Soup

This creamy chicken and chickpea soup makes an easy and nutritious meal from ingredients you probably already have in your pantry. Filled with onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, chicken, and of course chickpeas, this soup will satisfy your need for a soothing and flavorful meal on a wintery day!

Looking for a fun way to spend our afternoon this weekend, my friend Christina and I decided to make this soup from ingredients in our school cafeteria. After smuggling back the vegetables and chicken in styrofoam coffee cups, we made our way to the dorm kitchen and started cooking! If college students can make this soup, you can too! (You can also see a video of us making this recipe on Instagram, courtesy of Christina Lewis.)

As you’ll see in the video, this recipe is exactly what you need for a cozy, wintery day. Whether you enjoy it for lunch, dinner, or just an afternoon snack, this creamy soup is sure to hit the spot. You can also freeze it in individual bags for a quick meal on the go.

This recipe comes together quickly and is a great way to use up any extra vegetables you have in the fridge. For this recipe, I used tomatoes, onions, and green peppers, but feel free to mix it up with the veggies you have on hand. You can also easily make this vegetarian by omitting the chicken. It’s also naturally dairy-free and gluten-free, so it makes an easy meal if you have allergies.

How do you make chicken soup taste richer?

There are lots of ways to make your soup base richer. For this recipe, I blended chickpeas with garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, and vegetable broth to make the soup base more flavorful and creamier. You won’t believe how yummy and delicious this soup is!

How to serve this soup:

This soup makes an excellent lunch or dinner. Serve it with your favorite side of vegetables and of course, your favorite sourdough bread! Here are a few sourdough recipes that work well with this soup:

• Easy Overnight Sourdough Bread
• Sourdough Baguettes
• Best Ever Sourdough Sandwich Bread

You can also cut up day old sourdough bread and roast them in the oven to make crouton toppings for the soup if you like.

Flavor Variations:

You can mix and match the vegetables in the soup depending on what you have on hand! Here are a few ideas:

• Spinach, mushroom, tomato
• Kale, potato, leek
• Red bell peppers, spinach, onion

Let me know what your favorite vegetable combinations are in the comments section!

Tips for making chicken and chickpea soup:

• To make this vegetarian, you can just omit the chicken. For a bit more protein, you can add in extra chickpeas or white beans if you like. It will still taste delicious!
• If you don’t have any chickpeas, you can replace them with white beans.
• I like using coconut milk so I don’t have to worry about scalding it, but you can use whatever milk you like. In addition to regular milk, almond milk or cashew milk would also work well.
• If you have vegetable broth or chicken broth on hand, you can substitute it for the water to give the soup more flavor. Since I’m cooking from college, I didn’t have any broth, so I just used water. 🙂 Either way works fine.
• Again, since I didn’t have fresh garlic, I just used powdered garlic. If you have a bulb of garlic though, feel free to mince 5 garlic cloves and use them in place of the powder.
• You can freeze this soup in ziplock bags for up to 3 months.

Tools you will need:

Besides a stove and pot, all you need is a blender.

Ingredients you will need:

You probably already have everything you need in your pantry and fridge!

• 1 1/2 cups chopped chicken
• 1 1/2 cups canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 1/2 cups coconut milk
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1/3 cup chopped tomatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped green peppers
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 tsp oregano
• 1 tbsp garlic powder (or 5 cloves minced garlic)
• 1 tbsp olive oil

How to make creamy chicken and chickpea soup:

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat.

Add the onions, green peppers, tomatoes, and 1/2 cup of the chickpeas to the pot, and sauté until the onions are soft and chickpeas are slightly browned. This will take about 10 minutes.

Remove the vegetables from the pot and set aside.

Pour the coconut milk, water, and remaining chickpeas into the pot and cook until the chickpeas are slightly softened and the mixture is heated through. This takes about 8 minutes.

Pour the chickpeas and coconut milk mixture into a blender and blend until smooth. Add the blended chickpeas back to the pot.

Combine with the sauteed vegetables and chopped chicken. Stir in the spices. Heat for another 5 minutes or so until the chicken is warmed through. Enjoy with your favorite sourdough bread!

Hungry for more?

Here a few favorite dinner ideas from the Kitchen Counter!

• Easy Gluten-Free Lasagna Recipe (with Zucchini!)
• Easy Mediterranean Chicken Stuffed Bell Peppers
• Simple Tomato Galette with Ricotta
• Quick Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Let me know how yours turned out in the comments below!