Chickpea Noodle Soup

A few weeks back my family was hit with the flu—all of us, and it was bad! While none of us ate for a few days, as we slowly regained our appetites I began daydreaming about the chicken noodle soup I had growing up when I was sick. As my mind wandered I thought up this chickpea noodle soup. It has all of the classic notes of the soup you remember from your childhood, but is completely veganized.

I’ve put this soup through its paces—I’ve served it to family, friends, and tomorrow I am delivering it to two friends who each had babies in the past month or so! Best of all, it is toddler approved—David’s little face lit up when I told him what we were having for dinner—gotta love a 2 year old who gets excited about chickpeas!

1 T olive oil
1 medium onion
3 small Yukon gold potatoes
3 stalks celery
5 carrots, divided
2 T nutritional yeast
2 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1-2 bay leaves
8 c water
1 ½ c garbanzo beans (the same as 1 can, but prep your own by following my instructions for cooking dried beans!)
6 oz linguine style pasta, broken into small half inch pieces

Place the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Begin to roughly chop vegetables, starting with the onion. As you chop, place them in the pot and let them start to brown. Add the potatoes, celery, and 2 of the carrots. Cut 3 of the carrots into bite size pieces and reserve.

Add nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, and bay leaves into the vegetable mix. Add water on top and stir to mix well. Bring to a boil and let boil until all vegetables are very soft. Turn off heat. Using your immersion blender, blend the soup until all vegetables are pureed and you are left with a big pot of stock. Alternately, carefully transfer to a blender and blend until smooth.

Turn the heat back on and add the carrots you reserved. Let cook about 10 minutes, until you can almost pierce them with a fork. Add pasta. When pasta is al dente add garbanzo beans. Don’t worry that the pasta is a little al dente, as it will continue to absorb the liquid and soften.

Remove from heat and serve!  Hope this brings back childhood memories for you too!