Tasty Tuesday~Olive Garden Chicken Gnocchi Soup

It was only rain/sleeting here this past  Friday with the promise of snow when I started to plan dinner. On cold days and nights like today as the thermostat creeps lower and lower I love to warm up the house as I cook and then fill the bellies of everyone with a hearty soup or stew.  So I went to the fridge to see what we had.  Zakery then asked if we could have Olive Garden's Chicken gnocchi soup.  We love Olive Garden however the closest one is an hour away, and on nights like tonight it is not an option to go out.  A few years ago when we first tried this soup at Olive Garden we loved it so much that I took to the internet to see if there was a recipe out there for it.  I came across a website that had recipes from several restaurants!  You can click here to check out the site.  It is called CopyKat Recipes.  I have made a couple of the recipes on this site including the Olive Garden’s copycat Chicken Gnocchi and the  Zuppa Toscano!  Stephanie, creator of Copykat Recipes has also written a book that has her fabulous recipes in it! 
     Now, back to the soup…I have made it several times now.  It keeps well in the fridge and can also be made in the crock pot!  You can find her recipe here .  I did have to leave out the onions, Joe is allergic to them and the celery as we didn’t have it on hand.  I also used what I had like homemade chicken stock instead of the canned/boxed versions. 
   Now first of all, what is a gnocchi?  It is pronounced “nookie” (according to the waiter we had at  Olive Garden waiter in Cincinnati the last time)  and it is a small dumpling.  They can be made from potato, semolina, wheat flour, flour and egg, flour-egg and cheese and the like.   The first time I planned on making this recipe I couldn’t find already made gnocchi.  So I thought I would try to make them.  They can’t be that hard, right?
  Well, I never tried it because the recipe I found for that was for a potato gnocchi.  It called for a potato ricer and a I thought this was more that what I wanted to do incase they didn’t turn out.  Then it happened to be that I was at Meijers and low and behold they were right in front of me!  I now have found them at Krogers as well.  So there you have it!  I use store bought gnocchi.

So here is what I used beside the gnocchi:  butter, flour, chicken stock, garlic, half and half, boneless skinless chicken breasts, carrots, spinach, thyme, basil and parsley.
  I simmered the chicken in the stock for about 90 minutes.  I took the chicken out of the broth and set aside.  Once that was done cooking I started the gnocchi in a second pot.  You need to boil them like pasta for about 6 minutes or so.  I then put them in a strainer in the sink until I was ready for them.
In a second pot I sautéed the garlic in the butter then added the flour , half and half and chicken stock. I boiled this for a few minutes to allow it to thicken a bit.  I then added the carrots that I was supposed to shred, however once again I didn’t have shredded.  I had whole carrots that I put in a food chopper and chopped them.  It obviously wouldn’t change the taste.  Finally I added the herbs.  This looks so yummy and smells the same.  My kiddos had asked me 3 times by the time I got to this point when it was going to be ready! 


After this cooks for another couple of minutes I returned the chicken and the gnocchi to the pot.  It is almost complete!  You want to make sure that that is warmed all the way through so I brought it to a slight boil one more time.  When you are ready to serve it you add the spinach.  It wilts fast and makes the soup so pretty!


So delicious, rich and colorful!  I am not sure of the nutritional value of this and I haven’t tried to make lighter.  I used a stick of real butter and then the half and half.  We don’t have it all the time so in moderation I really don’t even watch it.  This is served best with a hard crusty bread and of course the trademark salad of Olive Garden.  This time we had it with crescent rolls and side salads with ranch and not the the all you can eat version!  Hope you enjoy it!