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Creamy Chicken Gnocchi Soup has a thick and rich broth with shredded carrots, celery, chopped spinach, gnocchi and chicken hidden throughout. This tastes even better than Olive Garden!
Bring restaurant quality soup to your home. I just love the Italian flavors in the slow cooker pasta e fagioli soup or creamy zuppa toscana too, so be sure to give them a try!
Creamy Chicken Gnocchi Soup
You guys are going to love the incredible creamy and rich broth. It is flavored with the perfect amount of seasonings and it even has one of my favorite herbs inside…. thyme. The added chicken and gnocchi (which I absolutely love) are so hearty. When you add in the freshness of the shredded carrots, celery, and spinach this soup is full of flavor! Put this on your list of must try soups! You will not regret it.
This chicken gnocchi soup is full of flavor in every bite. The combination of the vegetables, creamy broth and gnocchi give this soup 5 stars. It is simple to make and so delicious! Make this a complete meal by serving this favorite olive garden soup with homemade breadtwists and a side salad asparagus salad with lemon vinaigrette or antipasto salad.
Ingredients to Make Gnocchi Soup:
This Olive Garden Copycat recipe has been on my list of soups to make for a few years now. I love all of Olive Garden’s Soups but their Chicken Gnocchi soup is awesome. The best part is that it is so easy to make! It comes together in less than 20 minutes.
- Butter: Use the butter to make the roux.
- Olive oil: Add to the pan with the butter onion and celery and garlic.
- Onion: I keep frozen diced onion in my freezer so that I can easily add it to any dish.
- Celery: Diced celery gives this soup a great crunch and fresh flavor.
- Garlic cloves:Minced garlic adds a deep Italian flavor.
- All-purpose flour: The flour makes a roux which gives the soup its consistency.
- Half-and-half: The creaminess of this soup.
- Chicken broth: Add as much as you like depending on how thin you like your soup. For a thinner soup use more broth.
- Fresh thyme: Earthy and a little bit sweet, with a slightly minty
- Shredded carrots: I love the sweet flavor the carrots add!
- Spinach leaves: Chopped so that you don’t have big pieces in your spoonful.
- Chicken breast: Diced and cooked chicken. Cut into pieces before cooking so it will cook quicker. Cook it in a little bit of olive oil until it’s just done. Add a little salt and pepper to it if you like.
- Potato gnocchi: Hint- find this on the pasta isle.
- Salt and pepper: To taste!
How to Make Gnocchi:
Gnocchi is made from potatoes, flour, and eggs. It seems like an odd combination I would have never thought of, but I am so happy someone did! Although it does take time to make from scratch, making gnocchi can be so fun!
When I am in the mood and I have the time, I enjoy making it myself. However, it tastes great store bought too! If you are hoping to try it from scratch here is the breakdown:
- Boil Potatoes: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Peel potatoes and add to pot. Once cooked, scoop out inside.
- Combine: 1 cup mashed potato, flour and egg in a large bowl. Knead until dough forms a ball.
- Cook Gnocchi: Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Drop in gnocchi and cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until gnocchi have risen to the top; drain and serve.
Olive Garden Favorite Soup:
- Make a Roux: In a large pot add butter and olive oil. Over medium high heat sauté onion, celery and garlic until tender. Next, add the flour to create a roux and cook for another minute.
- Add In Liquids: Slowly add the half and half and chicken broth and stir until it starts to thicken.
- Spices and Ingredients: The thyme, carrots, spinach, chicken and gnocchi.
- Simmer: Allow to simmer for about 5 minutes or until gnocchi is cooked and soup is thickened. (If you want a thinner soup add another can of chicken broth.) Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.
Tips for the Best Chicken Gnocchi Soup:
- Gnocchi: It is best to use mini gnocchi if you can find them (or make them mini), they’re the perfect size for soup.
- Sauce: Don’t let the sauce get too hot or it can separate. Continually stir the sauce to prevent any separation.
- Spinach: For best results use fresh spinach. The frozen spinach will become mushy in the soup over a long period of time.
- Vegetables: Dice vegetables small and the same size to have them cook through evenly in time.
Variations:
- Substitutes for Gnocchi: A great substitution is pasta. The small shells or orzo are perfect for adding to this soup as well as rice.
- Protein: Substitute Italian sausage instead of chicken in the soup. Before adding it to the soup, brown the sausage at the beginning, then add it in.
- Vegetables: Sneak in extra vegetables like peas, zucchini or asparagus.
- Thicker Soup: Add extra cream to make it even richer.
- Chicken: To save time use pre-shredded, cooked chicken from the grocery store.
Slow Cooker Adaptations:
I would still definitely use cooked, diced chicken. Also, go ahead and sauté the veggies and garlic. Then put the chicken and veggies all together in the bottom of your slow cooker. Add the liquids and all the other ingredients except the gnocchi, half and half, and spinach. Cook on low for three to four hours, adding the gnocchi in for the last hour of cooking. Before serving, add the half and half and spinach and stir to combine. The spinach should wilt quickly. Serve.
How to Store Chicken Gnocchi Soup:
It is a bummer that this soup does not freeze well but it does reheat well. Place back on the stovetop and reheat on a low setting and slowly stirring it. This will help the soup from separating.
- Freezing: Unfortunately you cannot store this soup because of the dairy and gnocchi, it won’t freeze well. The gnocchi will become soggy and the dairy mixture will separate.
- Storing: If you are planning on lots of leftovers you can cook the gnocchi separately and add to individual servings.
Warm, Comforting Soups to Try:
- Creamy Sausage Tortellini Soup
- Crock-Pot Lentil Soup
- Slow Cooker Beef Bourguignon
- Cheeseburger Soup
- The Best Broccoli Cheese Soup
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Creamy Chicken Gnocchi Soup (Olive Garden Copycat)
Equipment
- Want to make this even easier? Here are a few products that I LOVE:
- Calphasdon Cookware Set
- Cuisinart Stainless Steel
- Chopper Utopia Kitchen Cookied
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup onion diced
- 1/2 cup celery diced
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 cups half-and-half
- 1 14 ounce can chicken broth for a thinner soup use 2 cans
- 1 Tablespoon fresh thyme
- 1 cup shredded carrots
- 1 cup fresh spinach leaves chopped
- 1 cup diced cooked chicken breast I used rotisserie
- 1 16 ounce package potato gnocchi on the pasta isle
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a large pot add butter and olive oil. Over medium high heat sauté onion, celery and garlic until tender. Add the flour to create a roux and cook for another minute.
- Slowly add the half and half and chicken broth and stir until it starts to thicken. Add the thyme, carrots, spinach, chicken and gnocchi. Simmer for about 5 minutes or until gnocchi is cooked and soup is thickened. (If you want a thinner soup add another can of chicken broth.) Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
thanks for the recipe!! I made it last night (just as it is written). Was awesome!!
Hi I just had some soup from Olive garden and I tasted as little spice in it.
Have u tasted it and . what is it I am tasting.I am going to make this soup this afternoon. Thanku.
I just made it and it came out alright. I had to add a lot of seasoning like garlic, parsley, and such to really make it tasty. I used frozen gnocchi and after a few minutes they were as tender as fresh. Thanks
How do you cook your chicken for this recipe? I oven baked mine with a lightly seasoned with salt and pepper. It still turned out great but I wanted to see if you do it differently.
I used a rotisserie chicken. Made it really easy!
Just made this tonight for my wife and kids. The kids are very picky and wouldn’t even try it but my wife loved it. The only change i made was making my own gnocchi. It turned out great! thanks for posting this
I kept feeling like it was missing something, so I added the juice of one whole lemon. My husband loved it.
I usually try new dishes according to the recipe itself. I think this is a HOME RUN as written…creamy, rich and full of flavor!! Well done Alyssa!! Next time I make this (being I like to change things up a bit), maybe I’ll try fresh mushrooms, more chicken and I’d make my own gnocchi. The gnocchi I bought was not as al dente as I would have liked. Also, I’ll try whole milk instead of half & half and add a hint of Parmigiano-Reggiano before serving to help thicken and add a different layer of dimension. This would pair nicely with a hearty unoaked chardonnay!!
I made this tonight. The flavor is wonderful but none of had had gnocchi before and we didn’t like that part of it. I will make it again, but I will leave out the gnocchi and just add more chicken. I actually added 2x as much chicken anyway and it would have been perfect without the gnocchi. In response to Jayne above, 1 teaspoon of DRIED is perfect. the Tablespoon was if it was FRESH thyme.
Are you sure 1 TABLEspoon of thyme is correct? I made this exactly as written and the thyme overpowered the whole soup. Literally couldn’t taste anything else. I’ll try again because I think it would be good if we could taste it all, but will probably reduce to a teaspoon instead.
If you were using dried thyme you would need to cut the amount to about 1/3- or to 1 tsp. Fresh herbs, as instructed to use, are much more flavorful than dried.
Do you have the nutritional information for this? It’s a fantastic recipe, although for my taste I would have preferred half the gnocchi and 3+ times the chicken.. also, like another reviewer stated, if you don’t use fresh thyme, limit the thyme to 1/2 – 1 tsp.
My Fitness Pal is a great tool for finding nutritional information.
I made this recipe on Sunday but the fat, flour & liquid was out of proportion.1/4 cup of flour will not thicken even a quart of half & half let alone an additional 28 ounces of broth.. once that problem was corrected by making more roux to mix in & reducing the broth to 14 ounces (I used boullion & water instead of prepared broth (1 t. Or cube of boullion to 14 ounces water) it was great! The soup refrigerated & reheated with no problem. I omitted the salt & nutmeg also. Actually , I forgot to add the salt & didn’t have nutmeg on hand. I uses thyme leaves in the amount the recipe called for & won’t change it next time..
Was thinking of making ahead of time and placing in the crock pot on keep warm until dinner time. Would this be ok? Should I wait to add the gnocchi until about an hour before dinner time?
I just made this and it was amazing. However, I had to add over 2 cups of chicken broth and about 1/3 cup more half and half to thicken it and keep it rich. I also used frozen spinach instead of fresh. Theirs is paler and mine has an orange tinge from the carrots. Next time I might reduce the amount of carrots because theirs does not have that much. The other change I made was adding mini gnocchi, because it’s my favorite part and I wanted there to be more. All in all, it was a pretty easy and delicious recipe I’ll most definitely make again.
This recipe was really easy to make and super delicious! I substituted cheese tortellini for the gnocchi and it came out great. I think I’ll try fat free half and half instead of regular next time for a lighter taste.
I made this tonight and it is so good even without the onion (I am allergic). Now it bothers me a lot less that Olive Garden is not conveniently located near my house. Thank you so much!
Maria, I am also allergic/sensitive to onions. I can digest onion powder, so use that in place of onions. Maybe it will work for you as well.
Hi, would love to make this but 2 cups of half and half is way too fattening and creamy for me! What could I substitute with (besides whole milk)? Thanks!
For a less heavy soup, you can cut the dairy in half, substituting more chicken broth to make up the missing liquid. For lower fat, you can use canned evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed milk, that’s totally different) in place of cream in a typical soup or sauce recipe.
I always use fat free half and half in my recipes