Martha Stewart Chicken And Chickpea Soup Recipe

Cumin, coriander, and cinnamon in a chicken soup sounds odd until you taste it. Martha Stewart’s Chicken and Chickpea Soup simmers bone-in chicken thighs with Moroccan spices, carrots, chickpeas, and a raw garlic-lemon-cilantro topping that wakes the whole bowl up.

This soup recipe is the one I reach for every winter when I want something warming that is not the same old chicken noodle. It takes about 90 minutes but most of that is hands-off simmering while the chicken falls off the bone.

Try More Soup Recipes:

• Lentil Soup
• Butternut Squash Soup
• Baked Chicken With Chickpeas

Why You Will Love This Chicken Chickpea Soup:

• The spices are Moroccan but the method is simple: You toast cumin, coriander, and cinnamon in the pot for one minute and they transform the whole soup. I was nervous about cinnamon in a savoury dish but you do not taste sweetness, you taste warmth. It just makes sense once you try it.
• The chicken falls apart: Fifty minutes of simmering on bone-in thighs and the meat pulls off in big, tender pieces. Martha has you tear it by hand instead of cutting it and the ragged shreds soak up more broth. I like this better than neat slices.
• The topping is what makes it special: Raw garlic, lemon zest, and cilantro stirred together and scattered on each bowl. It hits you with brightness and sharpness against the warm, earthy soup. I tried serving it without once and it tasted like a completely different dish.

Chicken And Chickpea Soup Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 large yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 3 teaspoons minced garlic
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 medium carrots, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 can (15 ounces) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves

How To Make Martha Stewart Chicken And Chickpea Soup

1. Brown the chicken: Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Cook skin side down until the skin is browned and crisp, about 6 minutes. Flip and cook another 6 minutes. Move to a plate.
2. Cook the onion and spices: Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat. Add the onion and cook until soft, about 4 minutes. Add 2 teaspoons of the garlic, the cumin, coriander, and cinnamon. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute.
3. Simmer the soup: Stir in the carrots and put the chicken back in. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to a medium simmer, partially cover, and cook until the chicken is falling off the bone, about 50 minutes.
4. Shred the chicken: Take the chicken out of the pot. When it is cool enough to handle, tear the meat into large pieces and throw away the skin and bones. Put the meat back in the soup.
5. Finish and serve: Stir in the chickpeas and season with salt, pepper, and the lemon juice. In a small bowl, mix the remaining 1 teaspoon of garlic with the lemon zest and cilantro. Sprinkle this over each bowl before serving.

Recipe Tips

• Brown the skin even though you throw it away: The crispy skin renders fat into the pot and that fat is what you cook the onion and spices in. Without it the soup base is thin. I know it feels wasteful but the skin does its job before you discard it.
• Toast the spices in the pot: One minute of cumin, coriander, and cinnamon in the hot fat is what unlocks their flavour. If you just dump them into the broth they taste dusty and flat. That one minute changes everything.
• Add chickpeas at the end: They are already cooked from the can. Martha stirs them in after the chicken is done so they warm through without turning to mush. I left them in for the full simmer once and they fell apart.

The Topping Is Not Optional

I skipped the garlic-lemon-cilantro mix the first time because I was in a rush. The soup was fine but flat. The second time I made it with the topping and it was a completely different experience. That raw brightness on a warm, spiced soup is the whole point.

Martha splits the garlic on purpose. Two teaspoons cook in the soup, one teaspoon goes raw on top. Cooked garlic is mellow. Raw garlic is sharp. You need both.

What Goes Well With This Chickpea Soup

Warm quick bread torn into pieces for dipping is what I make with this. The bread soaks up the broth and the spices stick to every bite.

If I want to stretch the meal I serve it over white rice in the bowl instead of on its own. The rice turns it from soup into a full Moroccan-style dinner.

How To Store Leftovers

Fridge for 3 days, freezer for 3 months. The chickpeas soften more overnight but the soup tastes even better the next day once the spices settle in.

I reheat on the stove and make fresh topping each time. The cilantro and raw garlic do not hold up in the fridge so mix a new batch. Takes 30 seconds.

FAQs

• Can I use boneless chicken thighs? You can but the bones give the broth body during the 50-minute simmer. Martha uses bone-in for a reason. If you go boneless, reduce the simmer to about 30 minutes so the chicken does not dry out.
• Can I use dried chickpeas? Yes but you need to soak them overnight and cook them separately first. Canned chickpeas are the shortcut Martha uses and they work perfectly. Rinse and drain them so the canning liquid does not make the soup cloudy.
• Can I skip the cilantro? If you are one of those people who thinks cilantro tastes like soap, swap it for flat-leaf parsley. The lemon zest and raw garlic still do most of the work in the topping.
• What makes this Moroccan? The combination of cumin, coriander, and cinnamon together is a classic Moroccan spice base. Martha keeps it simple with just those three plus chickpeas, which are a staple in North African cooking. It is not traditional but the flavour profile is right.

More Soup Recipes:

• Cream Of Mushroom Soup
• Potato Soup
• 15 Minute Lentil Soup

Nutrition Facts

(1 serving, serves 6)

• Calories: 310
• Total Fat: 12g
• Saturated Fat: 3g
• Cholesterol: 80mg
• Sodium: 680mg
• Total Carbohydrates: 22g
• Protein: 28g