This quick and easy chicken orzo soup is one that will cure what ails you. Ready in just about 30 minutes, too.
If you’re looking for a soup that you can get on the table fast, this is it! If you’re looking for a soup that will cure what ails you, this is also it! This is soul soothing soup, filled with vegetables, a delicious broth, orzo pasta and a touch of lemon.
A quick and easy chicken orzo soup, loaded with vegetables and just a touch of lemon juice to brighten up the flavours.
Best of all? This soup is ready in just 30 minutes! It is also dairy-free. Since the orzo cooks in the broth, it adds a bit of texture to the broth that mimics creaminess, without the need for cream.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Chicken: You can start with fresh chicken and easily and quickly cook it up with the onions and carrots at the start of the soup. If you happen to have leftover cooked chicken or you’d like to start with a store-bought rotisserie chicken. Simply add diced cooked chicken with the broth.
Spinach: Feel free to substitute any green you like, such as kale or chard.
Lemon: Fresh lemon juice makes all the difference here, if you have some on hand.
Orzo: If you don’t have orzo on hand, substitute white or brown rice or another small pasta.
Recipe Tips
While I’ve used carrots, spinach and corn here, you can use any vegetables you like in this soup.
Top Tip! Be sure to taste and season your soup well at the end of cooking. Salting brings all the great favours of this soup together.
Leftover soup will thicken as it sits in the fridge, as the orzo will continue to soak up the broth as it sits. You can thin it out with a little more chicken broth or just enjoy it in its more stew-like form.
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Get the Recipe: Quick and Easy Chicken Orzo Soup
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 2/3 cup carrots, diced
- 1/2 cup onion, diced
- 3/4 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 2 breasts)
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1/2 cup uncooked orzo, or other small pasta or even rice
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 1 cups water
- 1 fresh thyme sprig , or a pinch of dried thyme
- 2 1/2 cups fresh baby spinach, or other green, such as chopped bok choy
- 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- Salt and Pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Add oil to large soup pot or Dutch oven and heat over medium heat. Add the carrot, onion and chicken. Cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes. Stir in the chicken broth, water, parsley and thyme. Increase the heat to medium high and bring to a boil. Add the orzo and corn and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the vegetables are tender and the orzo is cooked.
- Discard thyme sprig, if used. Add the spinach and lemon juice. Cook for one minute to wilt the spinach. Taste and add salt, and pepper, if necessary. If soup is too thick, you can thin it with a bit more chicken broth or water, if necessary. Serve and enjoy!
Notes
More Chicken Soup Recipes to Love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
When I save recipes to my files for future reference (I have no website, just personal recipe files) word files…I like to have photos of the finished product as posted…your “upgrade” recently made it almost impossible to save a photo to my file. Why would you want to make it almost so hard to save your photos? I don’t have this problem with any other food blog I subscribe too!
Hi Judy, I can assure you my intention is not to frustrate anyone using my site. The reason you can’t download the images as before is because they are now being served in WebP format, which is a new image format developed by Google to compress images and load them more quickly. This format saves bandwidth for everyone and loads the site faster, for everyone. It’s a good thing. You will find more and more websites and “other food blogs” will be moving to this format sooner or later, as well.
I think it’s also important to remember that Seasons and Suppers is a recipe sharing site, not a photo sharing site. Making it easy for people to download my (copyrighted) images is not a “service” I feel I need to provide and especially not at the cost of making my site slower and heavier for all others.
All that said, there are ways to download these WebP images that are quite easy and I would be happy to tell you how to do that. Alternately, if you want to email me, I would also be happy to send you any image you need. My intention is not to keep you from using these images, it’s simply to make my site lighter and faster to everyone’s benefit.
I hope that helps explain why the site has changed and again, I’m happy to detail how to download them if you like. Just let me know.
Thanks Betty and you’re right. There is nothing like chicken soup!
Beautiful soup! Of all of the soups I make, I still think chicken is the best when you’re under the weather. I love the orzo in yours. :)