Tuscan Chicken with Orzo Soup

Tuscan Chicken Soup

Have you ever found yourself standing in front of the open refrigerator, scanning the contents of your shelves, rejecting the lunchmeat and the salad, wishing you had something substantial enough to satisfying your craving for a lunch that’s both tasty and healthy?  If you just said yes, here’s your answer.  And the reason that I can say that is because I’ve found myself doing the exact same thing!

I make this soup every few weeks because it’s simply delicious and it has a lot of healthy ingredients.  Plus it’s super easy to pull together when you’re short on time.  Using the low sodium chicken broth and rinsing the garbanzo beans of their briny liquid will also cut out a lot of the unnecessary sodium that a lot of the canned soups tend to have.

And if you haven’t learned this nifty little trick yet, try adding a Parmesan rind to your homemade pasta sauces and soups while they cook.  It pulls a lot of that deep, melted butter flavor you taste in Parmesan cheese, directly into the sauce/broth.

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 pound ground chicken
6 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
1 can fire-roasted, petite diced tomatoes
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup uncooked orzo pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon fresh basil, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh oregano, chopped
1 package fresh baby spinach, rinsed
1 Parmesan cheese rind
Shredded Parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1) Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot, on the stove over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until lightly toasted and then stir in the onion, and cook until soft.

2) Add the ground chicken to the pot and continue to cook 5-8 minutes until the chicken is crumbly.

3) Incorporate the broth, Parmesan rind, tomatoes, garbanzo beans, orzo, basil, oregano, salt and pepper into the pot, and cook for 20 minutes, until the orzo is tender.

4) Gently mix in the fresh spinach and cook 5-8 minutes until the spinach has wilted.

5) Ladle the soup into bowls and top with shredded Parmesan.

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