Chicken and Orecchiette Soup

I'm a fan of the soups at Olive Garden and here I'm making their chicken and gnocchi soup. I decided to use orecchiette pasta instead of gnocchi. I chose to use De Cecco brand because they make their pasta with a higher amount of durum wheat than other brands. This is important because the higher amount of durum wheat keeps the pasta from soaking up too much liquid and becoming soggy.

 

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup diced carrot

1 cup diced celery

1 1/2 diced yellow onion

2 cloves chopped garlic

2 cups spinach

2 cups cooked diced or shredded chicken breast

4 tablespoons flour

4 cups chicken stock

4 cups milk

Salt and pepper

 

Preparation:

Take a large stock pot, heat to medium and add the olive oil. Next add the carrots, celery, onion and garlic. Sauté the vegetables until they are soft and translucent. This should take about 10 minutes. Keep the heat in check, you don't want to burn the vegetables.

 

When the vegetable are ready, stir in the flour and then add the chicken stock 1 cup at time. Next, add the chicken and spinach. Bring the temperature up to medium high. Check for thickness of the soup, it should be pretty think at this point because you still have 4 cups of milk to add. I like my soups to be on the thick side so at this point I mixed in another 2 tablespoons flour in with the milk. Add the milk to the soup and bring up to serving temperature. Check for proper salt and pepper and you're done.