soup on demand: chicken and gnocchi soup

It sounds exotic and fancy, and it's so easy you will cry. The first time I made it, I fed it to aerialiste and my best friend and they emptied my pot.

Chicken and Gnocchi Soup

INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small white onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, shredded
1 pound chicken, cubed (cooked)
4 cups chicken broth
1 (16 ounce) package mini potato gnocchi
1 (6 ounce) bag baby spinach leaves
1 tablespoon cornstarch (optional)
2 tablespoons cold water (optional)
2 cups half-and-half cream
salt and ground black pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS
- Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Cook onion, celery, garlic, and carrots in the hot oil until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in cubed chicken and chicken broth; bring to a simmer.
- Stir gnocchi into the simmering soup and cook until they begin to float, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in spinach; cook until wilted, about 3 additional minutes.
- Whisk cornstarch into cold water until smooth. Stir cornstarch mixture and half-and-half into simmering soup. Cook until soup thickens slightly, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.


Gnocchi

Gnocchi are tiny potato dumplings and if this is the first time you have ever heard of them, you have such a treat in store for you because holy shit they are good.

There are many flavors of gnocchi, but they come in two types: wet and dry. You'll know them by whether you get them off a shelf (dry) or from the refrigerator section (wet). If wet, you just do what the recipe says. If dry, you'll need to cook them separately in a gallon of water or broth or you will use up all your chicken broth in the soup. Don't do that, in other words.

Recommendation: when you make your chicken, boil it and use the water for the gnocchi. Your gnocchi get the correct chicken broth flavor and you can more easily control the liquid ratios.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

Ooooo

[seperis]

I made it tonight its amazing.

[inoru_no_hoshi]

Leaving a comment cos ooo this sounds A Tasty Thing to try when next I am in an actual kitchen. :3

[seperis]

You'll love it.

[azurelunatic]

Ooo.

Does it freeze well, do you know? I'm always looking out for things where the bits that don't get consumed immediately can be squirreled away in the freezer for terrible brain/body days.

[seperis]

Yes, extremely well, but with a caveat. The gnocchi are literally dumplings, so they can get a little mushy when in liquid too long. The safest bet is to freeze it the night you cook it after dinner, don't refrigerate it first and let it sit in juice over night.

When reheating from frozen, you may need to add more liquid. Don't bother with broth, do water; your broth should have condensed down enough. Only add by about 1/4 cup at a time and you may not need to at all, but every few pots, it just got a little thick, but ymmv.

[timespirt]

My cousin made Gnocchi from scratch in the day. They were very good and she made it look easy.

[seperis]

Oh my God, seriously???????????? I have to look it up.

[lazulisong]

I was just gonna say, I saw a recipe that used instant potatoes

[polarisnorth]

This sounds delicious. Gnocchi is my favorite thing ever.

[seperis]

It is!

[kriscat]

Thank you for sharing this. I came across gnocchi at the store a while after reading your post. So I made your soup (or as close as I could get, since I'm realy bad at converting your units into metric.) Anyway, the soup turned out delicious. And it was great to divide in lunchboxes and put in the freezer. So thank you for the recipe. It was awesome to just reheat and eat when I was sick this week. So good comfort food. <3 Will make it again!

[seperis]

Oh, I'm so glad! It is a really good soup.