Our flavorful chicken vegetable soup checks all the boxes! It’s hearty and healthy, perfect for a cozy night in. You’ll love how it’s loaded with tender chicken, lots of veggies, and just the right amount of pasta.
This cozy chicken veggie soup is a family favorite, for sure! We pack five different veggies into this soup and love it! Then, to make sure it’s super satisfying and hearty, we add a little pasta.
It’s similar to our popular chicken noodle soup but has more veggies, and I add a few lemon slices to perfume the soup. The lemon adds a bright, fresh flavor, making our soup even more delicious. That little touch of lemon works wonders in our lentil soup, too. It really brightens up the flavors! If you’re on the hunt for more veggie-heavy soup recipes, I highly recommend our easy vegetable soup!
Key Ingredients
- Chicken: You can use leftover or rotisserie chicken or cook chicken specifically for this soup. I’ve shared instructions for easy roasted chicken thighs in the recipe, which I love chopping up and adding to this soup. Other options are whole roasted chicken or these juicy skillet chicken breasts.
- Vegetables: I use five veggies in this chicken soup. You’ll find onion, carrots, fennel, zucchini, and kale. Feel free to add more if you have them on hand.
- Herbs and Spices: I love garlic, thyme or rosemary, a bay leaf, and ground turmeric to add a rich yellow hue.
- Broth: Use your favorite store-bought chicken or vegetable broth. Bone broth is excellent, too, and will add more protein to your bowl. For homemade, I love this chicken broth or this veggie broth.
- Pasta: I always stir in a small amount of pasta. It’s optional, but adding just under a cup of dry pasta to the pot makes the soup hearty and dinner-worthy. Potatoes would do the same!
- Lemon: I love sliding in a few lemon slices just before serving. I do this for our lentil soup and ham and cabbage soup. It’s so good!
How to Make Chicken Vegetable Soup
If you don’t have cooked chicken, I highly recommend baking a few chicken thighs with a few herbs in the oven. To do it, slide them into a 400°F oven and roast until they are cooked through. This method makes the chicken super flavorful and juicy. You can even use some of the roasting juices in the soup.
We will cook the vegetables in two stages for the soup. The heartier veggies like onion, carrot, and fennel go in first. When they are soft and sweet, we add garlic, herbs, and broth. Then simmer for about 20 minutes.
Since the zucchini and kale wilt and soften quickly, they don’t need as much cooking time. So, add them at the end with the pasta, which only needs about 10 minutes. This is also when I stir in my chicken and any juices left on the pan from cooking it.
I love this chicken vegetable soup so much, especially with some homemade focaccia or garlic bread on the side for dunking! I can’t wait for you to make it!
Easy Chicken Vegetable Soup
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
This easy chicken vegetable soup recipe has lots of veggies and chicken, making it perfectly hearty. Use about 2 cups of cooked chicken or follow our directions for cooking chicken from scratch. The soup is also delicious without the chicken added.
You Will Need
For the Chicken1 ½ pounds (680g) skin-on chicken thighs, see notes
1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and fresh ground pepper
4 sprigs fresh thyme or rosemary
For the Soup1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped, about 1 cup
2 medium carrots, chopped, about 1 cup
1 medium fennel bulb, core removed and chopped, about 1 ¼ cups
2 cloves garlic, minced, 2 teaspoons
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or rosemary
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 bay leaf
8 cups (1.8L) chicken broth or veggie broth
1 medium zucchini, chopped, about 1 cup
1 bunch kale, stems removed and chopped, about 4 cups chopped
3/4 cup small dried pasta, like orecchiette or orzo
Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
2 to 3 fresh lemon slices with seeds removed, optional
Grated parmesan cheese for serving, optional
Directions
- Cook Chicken
1Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C). Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.
2Make a bed for the chicken with a few sprigs of fresh herbs. Rub the chicken with a teaspoon of olive oil, then lightly season with salt and pepper.
3Cook until a thermometer pierced into the thickest part reads 165°F, 25 to 35 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside until the chicken is cool enough to touch. Remove the chicken from the skin and bones then chop into small pieces. Save juices from the baking sheet to add to the soup.
- Make Soup
1About 10 minutes before the chicken is ready, make the soup. Place a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat (we use our Dutch oven). Add 1 ½ tablespoons of oil, onions, carrot, fennel, and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables soften and look glossy, about 10 minutes.
2Stir in the garlic, herbs, turmeric, and bay leaf and cook for 1 minute. Pour in the broth and bring to a simmer. When the stock comes to a simmer, you will likely need to turn the heat down to medium-low to keep it there. Stir in a 1/4 teaspoon of salt and a generous amount of pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes.
3Add the zucchini, kale, pasta, and chopped chicken, and all of the cooking juices left at the bottom of the pan the chicken was roasted in.
4Cook at a low simmer for 10 minutes or until the pasta is al dente. Taste the soup and adjust with more salt (we usually add 1 to 1 ½ teaspoons total, but this will vary based on the broth you use).
5Just before serving, drop the lemon slices into the soup. Serve with a bit of grated parmesan cheese on top (optional).
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Pasta: If you plan to serve the whole batch of soup straight away, add the pasta according to our directions above. If you plan to enjoy the soup over a few days, it’s best to cook the pasta separately and add it when serving. The pasta will soak up the liquid as the soup sits and become mushy.
- Storing: The soup will keep in the refrigerator for a few days and in the freezer for up to a month. It’s best to keep the pasta and soup separate when storing since the pasta will absorb liquid and become too soft. If it seems dry when you reheat the soup, add a splash of stock or water — there should be enough flavor.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
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This was so delicious, thank you so much for sharing your recipe! Even my girls that are not the biggest soup fans, thought it was so good! Followed your recipe as written and wouldn’t change a thing, other than I couldn’t find fennel, so I will try to find that next time. This is definitely a repeat and we loved it!! So glad I doubled it and kept the pasta seperate, so we can enjoy over the next couple days!
Made your chickenstock with only feet yesterday and today we made this soup. I just feel on top of the world after eating it! Thank you so much for heartwarming recipes that we need especially this time of year i snowy Norway
This is the BEST. SOUP. EVER. My 13 yo son even thought so! My husband and I are Keto, so we left the orecchiette out and cooked it separately for my son. We used a combo of vegetable and chicken broth since we had a couple cans of veggie broth we needed to use. Next time I’ll add more broth. Plus I used a lot more lemon. I had never cooked with fennel before and the taste was incredible! (You can NOT get fennel at Walmart, we got it at Kroger. And we used chicken thighs. Thank you infinitely for this recipe! We’ll be making this for Xmas eve soup night with our friends!
Hi Adam and Joanne! Love your recipes. I am making this soup tonight and was wondering if I could use lentils in substitution of the orecchiette? If so, will they soak up a lot of broth like pasta? Thanks so much!
Oh my goodness!! 6 stars please?! I made this and loaded with all healthy goodies and topped with Parmesan cheese can’t go wrong! Thank You whoever came up with this recipe! Definitely winter comfort foods and don’t pass up! in love
This came together easily, and has a great rich color. There was not much lemon in it, you might prepare extra lemon wedges to squeeze into it for a better flavor balance. Will make this again!
I am cooking this soup again and again! So tasty and filling
5 stars
I love this soup. Thank u, guys, for sharing this recipe. I cooked pasta separately. Just as much as I thought we would eat. Lemon was so good an addition. I haven’t thought it would make such a difference. Only I have twisted a ring of lemon into a bowl with soup and dropped it in it afterwards. Thank u again!
I looked up fennel bulb online and I since I have never used one can you tell me more about how to prepare it? How much of the core do you cut out?
Hi Sandra, Take a look at our braised fennel recipe. There, we show step photos for removing the core. Here’s the link to the braised fennel recipe.
Thanks that helps so much!
Hi Sandra, Fennel is very common for us living in Cyprus. U cut off only brown marks on it. We cook it, we use it in salads, it makes great sauce for spaghetti combined with canned tuna.
Just wondering where to find fennel bulb? I have never seen it in a store?
Hi Sandra, It’s usually sold near the carrots and celery in our grocery store. I’d ask someone working in the produce section. If you cannot find it, don’t worry, the soup will still be very tasty.
so i just got an instant pot and i’m obsessed with it. do you think there is a way to prepare this soup in an instant pot. like maybe saute the root vegies, throw in the chicken, add broth, then the softer veggies and the pasta? do you think that would work? how long do you think it should cook? like 9 minutes maybe? Let me know if you have any suggestions. and if i try it in the meantime i’ll let you know. I LOVE all the stuff you guys do. always my first “go-to” for recipes and ideas. Best, Nancy
Hi Nancy, Thanks for the kind comments! We have not made this in an instant pot yet, but it is on our list of to-dos. I’d expect this recipe to work similarly to any broth based soup. Once we have a chance to try it out ourselves, we will add additional notes sharing how to do it.
I’ve read the ingredients list several times, don’t see how much or what kind of pasta to use?
Hi Edith, You are correct, we make a mistake and left out the pasta. We add a 3/4 cup of dried pasta — any small shape will do, but we love orecchiette since it holds up a little longer in soups.
This is yummy