Recipe: Weeknight Rotisserie Chicken and Gnocchi Soup

If you’ve ever visited a place that begins with Olive and ends with Garden, you may have come across this soup. It’s well-loved by fans of the Italian chain, which means that copycat recipes are all over the internet. This take on the soup, however, is a little different. It relies on rotisserie chicken to make it weeknight-friendly, but skips the heavy cream that’s found in the restaurant version to lighten it up. Don’t fret, though — it’s still full of creamy comfort, thanks to tender, starchy potato gnocchi.

This is the kind of soup that puts you at ease — think of it as an Italian version of the Southern comfort food classic, chicken and dumplings, with fresh potato gnocchi replacing the usual flour dumplings. What makes this soup particularly special, however, is how it utilizes rotisserie chicken. Not only is the meat tossed in, but the carcass is also simmered in the pot with a simple soffritto of diced onion, carrot, and celery along with plenty of garlic, herbs, and water to make a quick chicken stock. And since the gnocchi are cooked right in the pot, they release some of their starch, thickening and adding creaminess to the soup, eliminating the need for any actual cream — not that you couldn’t tip in a bit for a final flourish!