Lemony Chicken Soup with Orzo • a feel-good recipe! (2024)

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My lemon chicken soup made with lots of garlic and ginger has all the comforting feels, plus it’s a darned easy weeknight meal ~ chicken noodle soup never tasted this good!

lemon chicken soup with orzo is soothing yet invigorating!

The warm chicken broth lulls you, the tiny little orzo pasta and buttery leeks comfort you, but then the fresh ginger and lemon come along to shake it all up.

what you’ll need

• chicken broth or stock ~ I find that organic broths and stocks have more flavor, but that’s just my observation.

• chicken ~ I plucked the meat from a rotisserie chicken to make things easy. I don’t know if you can see from the photos but I intentionally loaded the soup with chicken to make it meal-worthy. Confession: I prefer the flavor and texture of a rotisserie chicken to simmering my own chicken for this soup. Go figure.

• orzo ~ this delicate rice shaped pasta is perfect for soups. It doesn’t bloat up like rice does as it sits in the broth. That’s a good thing because I like to eat this for days.

• olive oil ~ good quality extra virgin provides flavor and a little satisfying fat to this lean soup. You could even add a pat or two of butter if you like.

• garlic ~ I minced 4 cloves, using my garlic press because I hate to chop garlic.

• ginger ~ fresh ginger, and lots of it, is one of the keys to this soup. If you always forget to buy fresh ginger, buy it once and freeze it in chunks so you’ll always have it. Just slice it into fine julienned pieces. Again, the key is to use enough of the stuff, enough so you can really taste it in the finished soup.

• leeks ~ they’re beautiful and buttery, but use onion if you prefer.

• celery ~ I’m obsessed with celery this winter, I love to feature it in recipes like this where it doesn’t have to compete with a lot of other ingredients. I cook the soup minimally so it retains a soft crunch.

• lemon ~ there’s really only a splash of lemon in this soup, but you can absolutely tell the difference. I add a little bit, then taste. If it tastes flat, I add a little bit more. You’ll know when you hit the magic amount, that touch of acidity brings everything alive.

• fresh dill ~ this is optional, but it adds to the fresh feeling of this soup. You can use parsley, basil, or nothing.

• salt ~ you need to add enough, but not too much. The amount you add will depend on how salty your stock or broth is to start with. Trust your taste buds on this.

why this soup works

I see two scenarios for this soup ~ one, you’re looking for a comforting weeknight meal that the whole family will love but you’re short on time and ingredients. Or two, somebody in the house is under the weather and needs some comforting sustenance. In both cases it’s a win because it comes together so quickly but doesn’t taste like the same old chicken soup we’ve had a thousand times before. Something as simple as adding ginger and lemon makes that difference.

what we serve with lemony chicken soup

As soups go, this one is almost stew-like because I really pack it full of veggies and chicken. What I mean to say is, you won’t go hungry even if you decide to serve it solo.

• biscuits are perfect with soup, whether you go with the standard biscuit or something a little different like buckwheat or masa harina biscuits. I’ll look the other way if you decide to go with something from a can 🙂
• Quick rolls
• Soda bread
• Easy Dutch oven bread

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