Creamy Vegetable Gnocchi Soup with Chicken and Bacon

Since this week was reading break, I had more time to make myself lunch and dinner every day and didn’t need to meal prep any big meals. So for this weeks blog, I’m sharing a meal prep recipe that I made for the family I nanny for. I retrieved this recipe from Tieghan Gerard from Half Baked Harvest. One thing to note if you decide to make this recipe at home, is I doubled the recipe and added shredded chicken. Therefore, my recipe and photos looks a little different than the original:

Half Baked Harvest is one of my favourite websites to retrieve recipes from. The ingredients and instructions for some of the recipes are a little high maintenance, but I promise it’s so worth it! This recipe is perfect for a healthy and hearty meal prep, as it has a lot of the necessary food groups in it! I had this meal for dinner with the toddler on the night I made it, and it might have been the tastiest food I’ve ever had. I also despise celery so the fact that I enjoyed this says a lot. I was able to take one serving home with me for lunch the next day, but I saved it for 5 days to see if it still tasted good on the fifth day. Another bonus with this recipe is you are able to freeze it in portions and reheat it on a later date. This is helpful for students, as some weeks we have more time on our hands than others, so it’s nice to make a big recipe when you have time and reheat it later when you don’t! One thing I learned making this recipe is to always prep your ingredients first and put what goes together in separate bowls. For example, the carrots, celery, garlic, thyme, basil, fennel, crushed red pepper, and salt and pepper all get dumped into the pot together, so I prepped them and put them into their own bowl for efficiency. It’s especially important to prep your kale first, as this takes time and you will not have time to wash, de-spine and chop the kale before it goes in.

Creamy Vegetable Gnocchi Soup with Chicken and Bacon

Ingredients

• 8 slices of bacon
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 yellow onions
• 12 large carrots
• 8 celery stalks
• 8 cloves of garlic
• 4 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves (or 4 teaspoons of dried thyme)
• 2 tablespoon dried basil
• 2-4 teaspoons of fennel seeds
• 2 pinches of crushed red pepper flakes
• salt (to taste)
• pepper (to taste)
• 4 tablespoons salted butter
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 8-12 cups of vegetable or chicken broth
• 8-12 cup of chopped kale
• 3 cups canned coconut milk, heavy cream, or whole milk
• 1 cup grated parmesan or asiago cheese
• 3 bags of gnocchi
• 3 cups shredded chicken

Instructions

• Finely chop the rosemary and set aside.
• Dice the onion and set aside.
• Cut the carrots and celery, mince the garlic, and remove the thyme leaves from their branches. Place these items into a large bowl along with the basil, fennel seeds, crushed red pepper, and a pinch of salt and pepper.

• Wash, de-spine and chop the kale. Place it into it’s own large bowl.

• In a large pot over medium heat, cook the bacon until crisp. When you think the bacon is close to being done, add in the rosemary.
• When the bacon is done, remove it from the pot and set it aside. Drain off any excess bacon grease, but leave about 2 tablespoons in the pot.
• Add the olive oil and onion and cook until the onion appears golden (takes about five minutes).
• Dump your bowl with the carrots and celery into the pot and cook until very fragrant (takes about five minutes).
• Stir in the butter and flour until both are well incorporated.
• Add in the broth and simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes, or until the carrots are tender. While the soup cooks, add the cream/milk and parmesan to the bowl of kale.
• Add the bowl of kale, the gnocchi, and the shredded chicken to the pot.
• After stirring, if the soup is too thick for you, add more broth.
• The recipe calls for the bacon to be served on top with parmesan, but for convenience, I added the bacon to the pot right at the end and stirred to incorporate.

This recipe was a 5/5 for me on the meal prep front. It was still so tasty and the texture was very similar even after 5 days! I’ve also tried it after it has been thawed and reheated, and it was still delicious!

I honestly really enjoyed this recipe, even though it took some time. The outcome was a little thicker than a regular soup, but that’s how the family likes it! The thickness also makes it easier to put in a tupperware containers and take in your bag for lunch, because you don’t have to worry about it being too liquidy and potentially leaking. I found it to be really time efficient to prep all the ingredients beforehand and have them ready in their appropriate bowls, so I will continue to do this in the future. One thing I will do differently is not drying the kale before putting it into the soup. I spent so much time washing and drying the kale, just to realize the kale was going to get wet in the soup anyway. I know this is common sense and I totally had a brain fart moment, but I just thought I’d save someone else this mistake as well.

Does anyone have any quick and easy meal prep recipes they think I should try? Let me know!

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