Lemon Chicken Soup with Spinach & Pasta

This soup has layers. A base of onion, 4 cloves of garlic, celery, carrots, and red bell pepper sautéed in olive oil creates a vegetable-rich foundation before 8 cups of fat-free chicken broth even go in. That’s a lot of aromatics for a soup, and you can taste every one of them.

Fresh lemon juice and grated lemon zest go in at the very end with the spinach and cooked chicken, which keeps the citrus flavor bright and punchy instead of cooked-out and dull. Six cups of fresh spinach wilts down to almost nothing, so don’t worry about the volume. It adds color and a slight mineral earthiness to every spoonful.

Cook the pasta shells separately and add them to the soup at serving time. Pasta left sitting in hot broth overnight absorbs all the liquid and turns bloated and mushy. Keeping them separate means leftovers reheat just as well as the first bowl.

Chef Tips

• Mince the carrots finely as directed so they cook at the same rate as the celery and onion
• Fat-free broth keeps this light, but regular broth adds more body if you prefer richer soups
• Add the spinach last and cook just until it wilts. Overcooked spinach turns slimy and army-green
• A generous grating of fresh Parmesan on each bowl adds salt and umami that ties everything together

Variations

• Greek avgolemono style: Whisk 2 egg yolks with the lemon juice before stirring in for a creamy, egg-thickened broth
• Orzo swap: Use orzo instead of shell pasta for a more traditional Italian soup feel
• Kale version: Swap spinach for chopped kale; add it 5 minutes earlier since kale needs more cooking time