Chickpea Noodle Soup with Parsley and Lemon

Next time you feel a cold coming on, try having a bowl of this vegan chickpea noodle soup, with lots of vitamin C rich parsley and lemon. Parsley over-winters well in the region I live in, so this is a great cold-weather option. The vegetables are flexible if you want to make it in other seasons, too.

Since there aren’t any tomatoes or other more flavourful additions going into the soup base, make sure to use a good vegetable broth here. I usually advocate for water making a fine base (store-bought stock cubes are mostly salt anyway, so you just need to season properly) but with a light broth like this one, you need good flavour building blocks.

Vegetable noodle soup is the ultimate comfort food. This is my replacement for the chicken noodle soup my mom taught me to make as a child, and it’s my go-to anytime I feel homesick or sad.

With a hint of sweetness from carrots and parsnips balanced out with a bite of lemon, it’s a great everyday recipe. There are a lot of variations you can take here – see the substitutions sections for notes, and use what’s available to you. For a similar recipe that’s a bit more basic, try my chickpea vegetable soup.

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Vegetables: change up the vegetables to suit what you have on hand. I love frozen peas here, added in the last minute of cooking. Leeks, celery, any root vegetables and greens you like, all good. I recommend keeping the carrots.
• Chickpeas: white beans are a good substitute for chickpeas. You could also use green or brown lentils, but increase the amount of liquid slightly if they’re going directly into the broth.
• Pasta: I use spelt pasta, but any short variety is good here. Use a good gluten-free pasta for a GF option. You can also go for rice or another grain if preferred.
• Parsley: switch out the parsley for oregano or cilantro, even basil. See parsley substitutes. It’s possible to leave it out altogether if you prefer, but it does add a lot in terms of freshness (building blocks!).

Recipe Notes

Check the cooking time for the type of pasta you’re using. Once the soup comes to a boil, you want a full simmering time of fifteen minutes – add the pasta within that time frame so that it cooks through. Mine took seven minutes, for example, so I added it halfway through.

As mentioned above, a good broth will make all the difference here. The original recipe included mushrooms in the soup, but I didn’t love that after re-testing, so they’re out. I add mushrooms to my veg broth so the flavour is there without the often spongy texture they take on in soups.

With any soup, the most important thing is to season to your personal tastes. Think of the salt, and pepper, amounts as guidelines rather than set it stone. I typically add significantly more salt than listed – for almost all of my recipes – but the saltiness of the broth you use will also play a role. Taste before adding more.

How to Store

Storage: as with any noodle soup, the pasta will absorb much more of the broth when the soup is stored. It can be kept for up to three days in the refrigerator, but if you know you plan on storing it, I suggest cooking the pasta separately and adding it when serving (reduce the broth by about 500 ml, or two cups).

Freezing: same as above. The soup does freeze well but the noodles become soggy when thawed. Freeze for up to three months in an airtight container.

Expert Tips

• Reduce the spice: I always add a bit of cayenne pepper or hot pepper flakes to soup, but I often hear from readers that it’s too spicy (even that black pepper is too spicy). If you know that your heat tolerance is very low, omit the hot pepper and reduce the black pepper – or if you’re on the other end of that spectrum, increase it!
• Check the size: my vegetables are cut to 1cm thickness. If yours are larger, you may need a longer cooking time. If you’re unsure, cook the soup until the vegetables are fork-soft before adding the pasta – it won’t do any harm.

More Wintery Soups

Carrot, Red Lentil, and Spinach Soup
Potato Leek Soup with Lemon
Creamy Cauliflower Potato Soup
Kale, White Bean, and Lemon Soup

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This post was originally published in February 2017. It has been updated most recently as of March 2021.

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by Alexandra Daum

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