A delicious Creamy Chicken Pasta Soup with spinach and a great flavor base makes this comfort food a real winner! It's an easy to prepare meal starting with building the aromatics and creating a tasty flavor profile that your family will love! This 30 minute meal with Rotisserie chicken pieces, which you can omit for a vegetarian option is the perfect family dinner.
Midweek, easy and delicious dinners your thing too? This time it's a pasta dish that's more of a soupy chicken pasta rather than say my Pasta Ziti Al Tonno (Pasta Tuna) or Fresh Ravioli Pasta.
Did I mention how really, really good this pasta soup tastes? It's the best!
I'm a big soup lover and tend to make them throughout the year, purely for the comfort and nutritional value that they add. We tend to serve soup on its own or with a side of fish, salad or bread but this recipe needs none of that because it's a meal on it's own and a very tasty one!
Tips For My Creamy Chicken Pasta Soup
Lets get started with how you are going to make this. Nice and easy.
I like to think of this recipe in 3 parts:
- Flavor based
- TRIPLE 'SSS' (Simmering Soupy Stock)
- Pasta
Flavour based: The flavor profile is made by cooking the onions till golden brown. How long this takes depends on your stove, but a slow cook should take the onions about 5 to 8 minutes to deepen in flavor. The key is to cook them slowly in butter and oil. You've immediately created richness with the butter and flavor with the olive oil.
Soup: Here we use chicken stock but not only that, we combine it with pasta water and together they simmer at the same time while the pasta par-boils!
Yes simmer the stock and the pasta water together it's brilliant!
The Pasta: The pasta par-boils while you simmer the stock and pasta water together. You don't use clean water to add into the stock, you 'steal' the pasta water and add into the stock????
If you're wondering how the pasta will cook in what might seem like less water the answer is, it doesn't. You're only par-boiling the pasta, it doesn't need all that water anyway.
The only reason we got the water up to ¾ in the pot is to take it a few minutes after adding pasta.
The bonus about this is that the less water there is in the pot the more starchiness is created while cooking the pasta. More starchy water more creamy pasta without any actual cream!
TIP: My suggestion and tip here is to use a measuring jug for the stock because it's easier to pour liquid with.
After your onions and spices have done their browning and flavoring, pour just part of the stock into the aromatics then start stealing the pasta water to fill up the jug again. You will probably take about 2 to 2 ½ cups.
When you pour the stock and pasta combination (liquid) into the aromatics pour about 3 cups of the liquid in and let is simmer for about 5 minutes giving your pasta the time to par-boil. Once the pasta is half way cooked, transfer it to the simmering liquid and leave it to cook till the pasta is done. Keep adding the remaining stock to keep some liquid in.
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Now that we have our 3 easy stages complete its time to add the spinach.
Creamy Chicken Pasta Soup
When to add the spinach;
Once you've added the pasta into the simmering soupy stock you need to check your pasta for doneness. If it's still got a while to go then wait with the spinach. Give the pasta time to cook till just about done and then add the spinach. It's the last ingredient besides the Parmesan cheese and black pepper.
Chicken
You can use left over chicken, just the white meat from the breasts, cut them into cubes and in they go. I've added the white meat from a rotisserie chicken, very convenient!
If you're wondering what the green large 'garnish' it's not part of the recipe????because somethings you can't explain! I'm very committed to no waste and collect everything, these were bits of red onion, baby spinach and cheese that I used in these Spinach and Cheese Tarts. I had the leftover bits in the fridge so simply tossed them into the same pan that fried my onions and it crisped up very nicely. Garnish of crispy cheesy bits done!
Make it Vegetarian or Vegan
Leave the chicken out for a vegetarian/vegan option. You can use tomato paste in the flavor base instead of romesca sauce and vegetable stock instead of chicken stock to make it vegan friendly.
More Soup Recipes To Try
If you try this Creamy Chicken Pasta Soup with Spinach, feel free to leave me a comment and a star rating! And if you take a photo of your dish and share it on Instagram, please tag me @anosmickitchen and use the hashtag #anosmickitchen because I love seeing your remakes! Happy cooking????
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Creamy Chicken Pasta Soup
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups pasta
- 2 tbsps olive oil
- 40 grams butter unsalted
- 2 garlic cloves .chopped
- 1 onion diced
- 1 teaspoon pasta seasoning
- 2 tbsps romesca sauce
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 2 cups pasta water
- 3 cups baby spinach
- 2 00 grams chicken 1 to 2 cups cubed
- 2 cups rotisserie chicken white meat
- 1 /2 cup Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Fill the pasta pot with water ¾ to the top and bring it the boil. Once boiling add a generous pinch of salt to the water. Add the pasta to par-boil not cook through, it will continue cooking in our simmering liquid. See notes 1 below for par-boil.
- While the pasta cooks heat a large non-stick deep saucepan (with sides) or use a stock pot or any large pot with sides.
- Add the olive oil and butter. Once heated through add the onions and cook until golden brown. Lower the heat so your onions don't burn, you want them to cook for a anything between 5 to 8 minutes.
- Add the garlic, romesca sauce and pasta seasoning. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
- Combine the stock and pasta water (a measuring jug works best). Now pour about a third of the liquid into the saucepan/stockpot and mix it in with the aromatics - onion, garlic, spice and romesca sauce.
- Simmer on medium high for 5 minutes before transferring the par-boiled pasta into the pot. Continue cooking until the pasta is ready, if you need more stock/pasta water add the remaining liquid from earlier. Just before the pasta is completely cooked through, add the baby spinach.
- Remove from the heat and sprinkle parmesan cheese and serve.
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