This Italian Chickpea Soup is filled with chickpeas and spinach, in a veggie broth combined with roasted red peppers, onion and lots of garlic.
The ingredients are simple… but the soup is packed with flavor.
We opted to roast our own red pepper in lieu of purchasing in the can – simply toss in the oven on broil until it’s black on each side. Remove the stem and seeds and dice – then set aside until you need them in the recipe.
You can use canned chickpeas or, make them fresh from dry – we used our Instant Pot to make the chickpeas from dry rather quickly – 1 Cup of dry beans combined with 4 cups of water on high pressure for 40 minutes was plenty of time for them to cook. We didn’t soak them prior to cooking – which was a huge time saver!
The diced tomatoes add in a rich flavor – and the chickpeas easily absorb the flavors of the onion garlic and roasted red pepper. You can add red pepper flakes to give it a little more punch, but it’s not necessary – even without the flakes the soup is full of flavor.
You can eat the soup alongside some easy 30-minute breadsticks – or, our favorite, Hatch Chile Cornbread. Yum!
- 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 4-5 cloves, minced garlic
- 1 red bell pepper, roasted, de-seeded & diced (or, use canned)
- 1 can, 14-15 oz, diced tomatoes
- 2 cans chickpeas, drained/rinsed (or use fresh)
- 1 quart organic vegetable broth
- 2 C. fresh baby spinach
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- optional: 3 slices bacon, diced
- also optional: red pepper flakes
- In your Dutch oven, add the oil and the onion, garlic, and roasted red pepper, and cook until softened, 5-6 minutes.
- Stir in the broth, tomatoes and chickpeas, and 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper.
- Turn the heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add the spinach and cook an additional 4-5 minutes (until it's wilted).
- Ladle into bowls and serve alongside breadsticks or cornbread.
- Truly optional, but if you would like to add additional flavor, you can add 3 slices of bacon. Cook the bacon before you begin the recipe; drain the bacon to a plate, and keep the bacon grease and combine with the olive oil to saute the onion, garlic and roasted pepper. Then add the bacon when you combine the chickpeas and the broth.
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