Jumpstart Dinner Recipe #3: Lemon Chickpea Orzo Soup

LEMON CHICKPEA ORZO SOUP

(adapted from Caitlin Shoemaker, From My Bowl)

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup water, sherry or veg broth, more as needed

  • 1/2 yellow onion chopped

  • 3 sticks celery, finely chopped

  • 2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped

  • 3-5 cloves garlic ,minced

  • 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning blend

  • 2 15.5 ounce cans chickpeas drained and rinsed

  • 6 cups reduced sodium vegan “chicken” broth, vegetable broth, or water

  • 1 cup uncooked orzo or other small pasta

  • 4 ounces baby spinach

  • Juice of 1/2-1 lemon

  • Salt and black pepper to taste


Directions:

Pour the liquid into a large pot and turn heat to medium-high. Add the onion, celery, and carrots and sauté for 5 to 7 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Stir in the garlic and Italian seasoning and cook for about 30 seconds.

Add the chickpeas and broth. Cover and bring the soup to a boil over high heat. Uncover and add the orzo or other pasta; reduce the heat to medium, and simmer for another 10 minutes, or until the orzo is tender. Stir frequently to prevent the orzo from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Turn the heat to low once the orzo is cooked and stir in the spinach and lemon juice. Season with additional salt an pepper to taste, if necessary.

Store leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or the soup can also be frozen for up to 2 months.

Notes:

Instead of canned chickpeas, you can use chickpeas cooked from scratch. You would want to start with about 1 1/2 cups of dried chickpeas.

You can use kale or other greens instead of spinach. Spinach needs almost no time to cook; kale takes longer, as do other greens.

This is good with nutritional yeast or “Fake Fake” (mix of ground nuts, nutritional yeast, and other ingredients). Adding Fake Fake makes the dish not Jumpstart-compliant, but nutritional yeast is fine for Jumpstart.

The original recipe has a step where you add flour to thicken the soup. I have never done that: it makes the recipe more complicated, and the soup gets plenty thick anyway from the pasta.

Enjoy!