This week you’re probably going to be doing a lot of cooking for Thanksgiving – but there’s still other meals that need to be made in the days before the big holiday, and we’re guessing you don’t want to be slaving away in the kitchen for those, too. So over the next few days we’re going to feature two very easy meals. Both are soups that you can throw together quickly to create some easy and healthy light dinners. After all, it’s finally become soup season, so it’s nice to have something warm and healthy to chow down on. Here’s todays soup, which we adapted for ourselves from this recipe in the New York Times, and which you can easily turn into a nice vegan meal.
To make this, you’ll need:
- Olive oil
- Carrots
- Celery
- An onion
- Garlic
- Red pepper flakes
- Dried rosemary
- 3 Massel 7’s chicken-style bouillon cubes
- A 19-ounce can of chickpeas
- A pint of cherry tomatoes
- Orzo
- A 5-ounce package of spinach
- Parmesan cheese (skip this for a vegan soup)
You can start by chopping up 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, and your onion, plus bringing 3 cups of water to a boil and dissolving in your bouillon cubes. In a large pot warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat and cook the carrots, celery and onion for around 5 minutes, until they’re softened. Finely chop 2 garlic cloves and add those in along with 2 teaspoons of rosemary and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes and stir everything around for another few minutes. Pour in your broth along with 2 cups of water and bring this all to a boil. Then drain and rinse your chickpeas and cut each of your tomatoes in half and add the chickpeas and tomatoes to the pot, along with 2/3 cup of orzo.
Cover the pot and turn the heat down to medium-low to let everything simmer for 10 minutes. Then put all your spinach in and stir everything together until the spinach is fully wilted.
And that’s it! Dish up your soup with grated Parmesan on top (or leave this off if you’re making a vegan soup).
What’s not to love about a super easy soup? Here all you have to do is chop a few things, simmer them all together, and bam! You’ve got yourself a warm and veggie-packed meal that can be vegan if you just skip the cheese topping at the end. We liked all the different vegetable flavors here, and how they made this soup colorful, plus the orzo and chickpeas add a little bit of heartiness in. All in all this was a great easy meal – and check back tomorrow for an even easier soup.