30 Minute White Bean + Chicken Soup.
Around this time last year, I made my first batch of chickpea chicken soup and fell in love. I don’t know what it about throwing a boatload of ingredients into a pot of simmering broth, but it ignites an itsy bitsy fire in my soul.
Well. That sort of sounds annoying, huh?
Whatev. All I’m trying to say is that I really like soup.
Wanna hear something funny?
Okay. It’s really not funny.
Mr. How Sweet has been gone for almost two whole weeks. TWO.
You know how much I love that. I crave my single lady time and get to do whatever the heck I want. I get to hog the bed to myself, don’t have to listen to any snoring, get to watch all those Friends’ episodes that I seriously (seriously!) have not shut up about, not pick up after myself, and perhaps most importantly: eat whatever, whenever I want. Things that he won’t even dreeeeeam of touching. Things without chicken and steak. Things like wine and cheese and crackers every night.
That’s not the nonfunny part. The nonfunny part is that I developed my sickness the day he left. The sickness that robbed me of my sense of smell, appetite and general motivation to do anything at all. The sickness that made me not want to eat anything fun. The sickness that only allowed me to consume about 6 full meals in 11 days. The sickness that caused me to LISTEN TO MY OWN SNORING every single night. The sickness that made me ingest more Nyquil that humanly possible, disallowing me any wine. The sickness that rendered me useless and made it physically impossible for me to steam clean our carpets and deep clean our family room like I had fully intended on doing.
Oh wait. We all know I could care less about those last two.
But really. This lack of appetite has been so intense that I let that entire pan of baklava sit on my counter without touching it for THREE days. I let the mocha coconut fudge sit right under my nose for THREE more days without so much of a bite. Well, except for yesterday when I took a bite of fudge, then a bite of pretzel, then a bite of fudge, then a bite of pretzel, then a bite of… yeah. It has just been totally loopy.
I have pretty much lived on green things that I thought would cure me and slurps of soup, this being one variety. It’s packed with tons of flava flav, thanks to the bacon that starts everything off. Don’t you dare leave it out! I’ll know it if you do.
So now… Mr. How Sweet is on his way home and I guess that means I have to come up with something really meaty for tonight. Hope he doesn’t mind eating dinner at midnight in bed while watching Friends.
White Bean Chicken Soup
serves 4
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked and cubed
2 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
1 small sweet onion, chopped
1 cleaned and trimmed leek, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 (6 oz) bag fresh spinach
1 can (15 oz) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups low-sodium chicken stock
2 cups water
1/4 cup freshly grated fontina cheese + more for garnish
Heat a large pot over medium heat and add chopped bacon. Cook until crispy and fat is rendered, then remove and let drain on a paper towel. Turn heat down to medium-low and add onions and leeks. Stir thoroughly to coat in bacon fat, then cook for 3 minutes. Add in mushrooms, stirring to coat and cook for 3 minutes more. Stir in pepper and paprika, then add in garlic and spinach. Cook for 3-4 minutes, or until spinach wilts.
Add in chicken and toss with ingredients to coat. Add in beans, stock and water, then simmer for 10-15 minutes. Stir in fontina and bacon. Season with salt if desired (I really didn’t feel that mine needed any with the bacon + stock + fontina.) Serve with additional grated fontina and crackers.
Note: as long as you have some cooked chicken on hand, this soup will take you under 30 minutes. If you have to cook the chicken, you’re looking at about 45 minutes.
P.S. Those little crackers up there are these crispy multigrain flax pita things from Trader Joe’s. They are currently rocking my world. sooooo.much.freaking.crunch.
100 Comments on “30 Minute White Bean + Chicken Soup.”
Making soup brings out my inner chef. Eh, throw it in there. This sounds good. A little more stock.
Sounds like you are back to your normal self and glad the mr is back!
I love love love soup. I could eat it every day – wait I pretty much do eat it every day. And bean soup, oh that is my favourite. I really want to jump into my screen and eat this soup right now!
Wine and cheese and ‘Friends’ sounds like my kinda evening. So does the whole pretzel-fudge-pretzel-fudge rotation you’ve got going on :)
I’m hungry and waiting to leave to go to dinner. I figured stopping by here was a good idea. The soup looks like perfect winter hibernation soup!!
That looks delicious and I’m so happy to hear that you are feeling more like yourself. I say you deserve to watch all the Friends episodes you want :) And let Mr. How Sweet fix the food tomorrow ;)
I think you were more than sick if you didn’t touch desserts! That might have required a hospital visit!
Love this soup. I’m a soup girl.
Hey Jessica, your Chicken Soup is a Recipe Guessing Game on Knapkins. Think your friends can win? http://www.knapkins.com/guess_games/1015?source=blog Show your foodie love and vote here http://www.knapkins.com/duel?dish=15709
Sounds delicious! Perfection in a bowl :)
That soup looks so comforting for a FREEZING -33 day like we are having in my city today.
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Oh wow this sounds GOOD :) Thanks for the recipe.. if only it was the season here for soup!
Sorry to hear you’re STILL feeling lousy… that’s not fun. AT ALL. On days when I’m sick I like to eat muffins. BIG, FAT, FATTY lemon poppy seed muffins… you know, the ones you get at costco. They’re basically on steroids. I LOVE them when I’m sick.
Hope you feel better soon! This might just be THE worst time of the year to get sick!
these photos are stunning! Makes me and my thankfully-non-sick self want to curl up with a bowl of this soup and watch a movie. Or an episode of Friends. :)
Dude. That soup has green stuff in it. Are you going through some kind of hormonal change? ARE YOU PREGNANT??????
kidding.
Your pictures are gorgeous. I’m making this tomorrow. Cause your pictures are gorgeous.
Ha! I was thinking they were crackers from TJ’s! Thanks also for fixing whatever the problem is/was on the feed (I guess you did something)…anyway, after not receiving any notifications from your blog for about 5 or 6 weeks, all of a sudden, yesterday, I started getting them again! I see I need to catch up on my reading, you’ve been busy!
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Made this soup tonight and of course it was nothing short of amazing! Thanks for sharing and can’t wait to eat the leftovers tomorrow
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Quick, easy AND healthy. Very nice :) A perfect weeknight meal on a cold winter evening.
This is a delicious soup, especially with your blue cheese biscuit recipe! Thanks so much for sharing!!! Yummy! :-)
This looks amazing.
I’m going to make it tomorrow night, skip the mushrooms though and might add some rice in it.
This soup was incredible! It would even be good without the chicken. Thank you for the recipe!!
Made this soup last night and it was absolutely delicious. The picky hubby loved it too! Having it again for lunch today. Thanks for sharing!!!
hahah! amazing post. i crave your soup and your honesty. thanks for making me laugh.
martha from abisouslife.blogspot.com
bisous fois dix
I wanted to let you know that I made this except changed alot of things—I subtracted the leeks and mushrooms, added a cup of cooked wild rice, substituted the cannenelli beans with pinto beans, and instead of fontina cheese I put in about 3 tablespoons of gorgonzala cheese. Maybe you should try it that way! It was reeeeaally good. My husband said it was the best soup he’d ever tasted, so I made it again for a group of people who gobbled it up and gave lots of compliments and second helpings. Another thing I liked about it was it was so filling. I was full after one bowl and a handful of crackers, and it’s the kind of good full that lingers.
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Can you cook this even longer than 30mins if need be?
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Fabulous dinner for my family! Yum! Thank you!
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Made this soup tonight and am adding it to our normal rotation. LOVED IT
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I made this last week and it was yummy! I decided to make it at the last minute so I had to fudge a little on some of the ingredients but it was such a nice change of pace from the chicken vegetable soup I had been planning on making. Thanks! :o)