Chicken Tortellini Soup

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 2 cups carrots, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 9 cups chicken broth
• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 ½ tsp dried thyme
• ½ tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp ground black pepper
• Package of refrigerated tortellini (see notes below)
• ½ cup fresh spinach leaves, rough chopped
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• Salt and pepper, to taste, if needed

Directions

1. Place large sauce pot over medium heat.  Add olive oil and onions. Saute for three minutes to soften.  Add chopped pepper, carrots and garlic. Saute another three minutes.
2. Add chicken broth, chicken breasts, thyme, crushed red pepper, salt and black pepper.  Bring just to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.  Remove the chicken and place on a cutting board.
3. Turn the heat back to medium.  Stir in the tortellini and stir so they don’t stick together.
4. Chop or shred the chicken and place back into the soup.
5. Once the tortellini is cooked through (follow the directions for timing on the package), turn off the heat.  Stir in the spinach and parsley. Taste, add additional salt and pepper if needed.
6. Serve and enjoy!

Notes

We love this soup, and when I make it I like to use Buitoni tortellini. Most of my family loves pasta so I toss in an entire family size 20oz package (the typical size is 8-9oz).  If you’d like your soup to be a more traditional soup with a few tortellini you can absolutely use a smaller package of pasta. The original recipe I adapted this called for an 8oz package of tortellini.

If you think you have too much chicken for the soup when you chop or shred it you can refrigerate the extra chicken and use it for something else.

This soup is delicious and I love having the leftover chicken soup for lunch the next day (my family will have eaten all the pasta during dinner!).