Easy Chickpea Soup

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

It’s a healthy soup that’s creamy without any actual cream. Since you puree half the soup, the combination of pureed chickpeas and potatoes gives the soup it’s lovely creamy consistency.

This chickpea soup is more than just broth with chunks of vegetables in it, but it’s not a completely smooth soup that has been fully blended either. It lands somewhere in the middle, and it’s nice having an alternative recipe for a veggie soup that isn’t in a tomato broth. No offense to canned tomatoes, but it’s always great to have variety.
Like so many soups, this one is a good choice for meal prep and it’s freezer friendly. Chickpea soup is hearty enough to be the main dish soup for lunch or dinner. 

Ingredients & Substitutions

This is what you need:

• Chickpeas, garbanzo beans, or whatever you prefer calling them, are great in soups. I always use canned ones to take advantage of their convenience.
• Onions are a must when it comes to starting most of soup recipes. You just sauté them in oil.
• Carrots are partially responsible for that flavor base with the onions. They add a touch of vegetable sweetness and they also deserve credit for the beautiful golden color.
• Garlic: This soup wouldn’t be complete without minced garlic as part of its aromatics with the onions and carrots.
• Potatoes do two jobs. They thicken the soup when they are pureed, but since not all the soup ends up in the blender, you get these nice tender chunks of potato in each spoonful. You can use yukon gold potatoes or russet potatoes.
• Rosemary: A couple sprigs of fresh rosemary simmer in the soup with the potatoes and veggies.
• Kale is such a simple way to incorporate nutritious greens. The heat of the soup quickly softens the chopped leaves, so I wait to add them until the end. You can swap kale out for spinach.
• Vegetable broth: For every soup recipe, I prefer low sodium broth. Then you can control the seasonings. If you aren’t concerned with keeping the soup vegetarian, you can substitute with chicken broth.
• Olive oil: I use extra-virgin olive oil when sautéing the vegetables.
• Salt & pepper are incorporated with the garlic, but make sure to taste the soup and adjust the seasonings as needed. Just the smallest amount of salt can really bring out the overall flavor of any dish, especially soup.
• Parmesan cheese melts into the creamy pureed broth leaving behind a nice umami flavor. I also sprinkle Parmesan on top each bowl before serving. If you prefer the soup vegan, leave out the cheese and sprinkle each bowl with nutritional yeast.
• Lemon adds a wonderful citrusy brightness to the soup. It’s last finishing touch with the fresh parsley.
• Parsley is my chopped herb of choice. You can also try chives.

How To Make Chickpea Soup

1. Heat the oil in large pot over medium heat and sauté the onions. Give them 5 minutes to turn soft and translucent.

2. Add the carrots and continue sautéing for a couple minutes.

3. Stir in the minced garlic, salt and pepper. After 30 seconds or so, the vegetables will become fragrant.

4. Add the vegetable broth, chickpeas, potatoes and rosemary. Bring the soup to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer with the lid partially on the pot until the potatoes are tender, about 15-20 minutes.

5. Carefully transfer half the soup to a blender and puree it.  Make sure to remove the rosemary sprigs before pureeing. Then pour the pureed soup back into the pot.

6. Stir in the kale and simmer for a couple minutes.  The leafy greens will wilt slightly. Divide the soup into bowls and finish with Parmesan, lemon juice and parsley.

Serving

This vegetarian soup is very filling for lunch or dinner. You can keep it easy and serve with a hunk of focaccia or crusty bread. If you are feeling more hungry, make an Italian-style grilled cheese with mozzarella to go with it. For salads, try an arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette, a classic house salad or a brussels sprout caesar salad.

Leftovers & Storage

Let the soup cool to room temperature before storing it. You can keep it in the fridge up to 4 days. Warm it in a pot on the stove over low to medium heat or in the microwave. To keep the soup longer, you can freeze it up to 1 month. It makes thawing easier if you divide it into portion sizes before freezing the soup. 

Recipe Tips

You can simmer the soup with a Parmesan rind. I keep a stash of rinds in a bag in my fridge. They add even more umami when you throw one into Italian soups and homemade tomato sauces.

The best potatoes to use for the soup are russet or Yukon Gold. That’s because they hold their shape in chunks, but then they also puree well. Do not substitute with sweet potatoes.

Transfer the soup to a blender to puree it instead of doing it in the pot with an immersion blender. Since you want half of the chickpeas, carrots and potatoes to stay whole, the only way to do this is ladle out the other half to puree it. Otherwise you will miss out on those chunks of vegetables.

Don’t forget to take out the rosemary sprigs before you puree the soup. Or you will end up with way too much of its flavor.

More Soup Recipes

Roasted Tomato Soup
Minestrone Soup
Lentil Wild Rice Soup
Roasted Cauliflower White Bean Soup
Hearty Vegetable Soup
Roasted Eggplant Stew
Harissa Chickpea Vegetable Soup
White Bean Sweet Potato Kale Soup