Chicken Florentine Soup is one of my favorite easy, creamy soups to make each Fall. It’s loaded with spinach, sun dried tomatoes, orzo, lemon, and garlic in a creamy parmesan broth. You’ll love how quickly it comes together and how flavorful it is!
Table of Contents
What is Chicken Florentine Soup
This Chicken Florentine Soup is an Italian-inspired recipe that's absolutely delicious.
It's made with spinach, sun dried tomatoes, onions, garlic, and orzo.
The broth is a chicken-based broth that's enriched with a parmigiano rind, heavy cream and lemon juice.
It's rich, creamy, tangy and super flavorful.
Although orzo is not a typical ingredient in this soup, it adds more body to the soup and makes it more filling.
Within this blog post, I share the recipe along with a step-by-step video so that you can make it quickly and easily.
It's one of those comforting recipes that's perfect for cold, busy nights.
You're going to love it!
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Olive Oil - Any neutral oil will work but I like this one because it's Italian and so is the recipe!
- Onion - If you don't have onion, you could use shallots.
- Red pepper flakes - Don't worry, this won't be super spicy. Adding them to the onions at the beginning of the recipe just adds more depth to the overall flavor!
- Garlic cloves - Fresh garlic is best! I do not recommend the jarred minced variety. But if you don't have fresh, then garlic powder will work if absolutely necessary.
- Sun dried tomatoes - These are optional but add so much flavor!
- Chicken stock - If you don't have chicken stock, you could use veg stock, too.
- Parmigiano rind - This is another one of those optional ingredients but it adds SO MUCh flavor! I keep a bag in my freezer and just stash rinds after I've grated all the cheese off. It's a great trick to reduce waste while creating more flavor!
- Orzo - Any tiny pasta shape will work just fine!
- Chicken - Chicken is totally optional. I'm using cut up rotisserie chicken but you could either make it fresh or use pre-cooked shredded chicken.
- Fresh baby spinach - Feel free to use frozen spinach if you have to! Just drain the extra water off so the soup doesn't get watered down.
- Heavy cream - If you don't have heavy cream, you could swap it for whole milk or half n half if necessary... just won't be as creamy.
- Lemon - Lemon is essential to this recipe! It adds so much flavor and zing. If you don't have fresh lemon juice, you could use a tiny bit of the bottled kind.
How to make Chicken Florentine Soup
Making this Chicken Florentine Soup recipe is a total breeze!
First, you'll want to grab a large soup pot. I'm using the new Perfect Pot from Our Place and I love it!
Start out by heating the pot over medium and add olive oil, onion, red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt.
You'll want to cook this down for for 5-7 minutes or until the onion is soft and beginning to get some color.
Next add the garlic and the sun dried tomatoes. You can also add some of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes if it looks a little dry,
Cook this mixture down for 2 more minutes or until the garlic is soft and fragrant.
Next it's time for the chicken stock, the parmigiano rinds, the orzo and the chicken.
I love adding parmigiano rinds to creamy soup bases because it adds the perfect cheesy undertones and actually makes the soup a little thicker.
As for chicken, I just chopped up some rotisserie chicken that I had on hand. But you could absolutely use leftover chicken or make it fresh. Totally up to you!
Once everything is added, bring it to a boil. Then turn the heat down to medium-medium/low and cook for 10-15 minutes or until the orzo is cooked through.
You'll want to stir this often so the parmigiano rinds don't stick to the bottom of the pot.
Now it's time for the finishing touches.
Next, you'll want to add the spinach, heavy cream, and the juice from one lemon and stir.
You'll only want to cook the soup for another minute or so, so that the spinach stays bright green and the soup is creamy and rich.
Now that it's done, simply season with salt and pepper to taste then serve!
How to reheat it
Reheating Chicken Florentine is super easy!
To do so, you can either heat it in a pan or in the microwave.
For convenience, the microwave is probably easiest.
With this method, you'll just want to pour the soup into a microwave safe bowl. Cover it with a paper towel then place it in the microwave.
Microwave for 2 minutes, stirring half way through. If it's not hot yet, put it in for another 30 seconds at a time until it's heated through.
The next easiest option is the stovetop.
Simply pour the soup in a small soup pot, turn the heat to medium and slowly heat the soup up.
You'll want to stir this as it heats up so that the heat is evenly distributed.
It should take about 5 minutes using this method.
What goes with Chicken Florentine Soup?
If I were making this Chicken Florentine Soup for dinner, I would definitely pair it with a sheet pan of Pizza al Taglio.
This creamy soup would also go really nicely with my fresh fig tart with honey truffle whipped goat cheese.
And if you wanted something a little heartier, try my easy chicken pomodoro recipe!
Save this recipe for later
Looking to save this Chicken Florentine Soup Recipe for another time? I got you!
I created these pretty pin-friendly images below so that you can save them to your pinterest boards.
And if you don't already, please feel free to follow me on pinterest, facebook and/or instagram for more tasty inspiration shared daily!
Oh! And if don't do social media, you can always just scroll to the bottom of this post where you'll be able to print or save the recipe card!
Recipe
Chicken Florentine Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 medium onion diced
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes
- 5 cloves cloves thinly sliced
- ¼ cup sun dried tomatoes roughly chopped (with a little of the reserved oil)
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 1 parmigiano rind (optional but SO GOOD!)
- 1 cup uncooked orzo
- 2 cups cooked chicken chopped or shredded
- 5 oz fresh baby spinach
- ½ cup heavy cream whole milk or half n half could sub if necessary
- 1 lemon juiced
Instructions
- In a large soup pot over medium heat, add olive oil, onion, red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt. Cook for for 5-7 minutes or until the onion is soft beginning to get some color.
- Next add the garlic and the sun dried tomatoes (and a little bit of the reserved oil that the tomatoes are in in case it seems dry) and cook for 2 more minutes or until the garlic is soft and fragrant.
- Add in the chicken stock, the parmigiano rind, the orzo and the chicken and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring every so often, or until the orzo is cooked through.
- Add the spinach, heavy cream, and the juice from one lemon and stir. Cook for 1-3 more minutes until the spinach is wilted and the soup is creamy.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste then serve.
Jana
This soup was delicious. So easy, it was hard to believe how good it tasted. It's going on our soup rotation. Thanks for ybe great recipe
Lynne
Sounds yummy, what is the nutritional value please.....I'm diabetic.
grilledcheesesocial
I don't include nutritional info so you would have to figure that out yourself -- sorry for the inconvenience!
Kathy Barham
MacKenzie, this sounds delish. I've just included all the ingredients on my current shopping list. It will be the second recipe of yours that I'm using. The first was spicy garlic butter noodles and the entire, extended family loved it so much they were disappointed that there were no leftovers. Even my Thai daughter-in-law thought they were world-class fusion. You made me look good! I have to give my cousin, Shari M, kudos for posting your recipes as I would have otherwise never found them. As sweet as Shari is ~ I won't be depending on her anymore. I'm subscribing so I don't miss a thing. Thank you and best wishes with all of your future endeavors!