Creamy Chicken Meatball Soup

This delicious and healthy chicken meatball soup is the perfect comfort food for a chilly day. Packed with protein, veggies, and tons of flavor, make is a super satisfying meal.

My husband and kids, of course, love it with a side of gluten-free cornbread. Me being me, I just enjoy the soup on its own.

I started making this soup because I found a bunch of ground chicken on sale at Aldi. Of course, I brought it home and put it in my freezer. We mixed it with beef to make hamburgers, and used it in a few casseroles and chicken tacos, but in the end, I found we all liked this chicken meatball soup best.

Side note: I’m a huge soup lover, so if you hear me call more than one soup my favorite, it is what it is.

I love the garlicky flavor of the meatballs, with the subtle taste of fresh parsley, and the herby creaminess of the broth is so good with them!

This is a fantastic cold-weather dinner, served with sourdough biscuits and a green salad. And while my husband is a big cornbread guy, like I said, he also enjoys it with gluten-free baking powder biscuits.

Ingredients for Chicken Meatball Soup Recipe

This is a protein-packed soup, but it’s also nicely rounded out with a healthy amount of vegetables and carbs, making it a great energy source.

• Ground chicken. I usually buy ground chicken when I find it on sale, but sometimes I also use my Kitchen Aid food grinder attachment to grind chicken breasts, and it’s one of the easiest meats to grind.
• Breadcrumbs. As mentioned above, My husband is gluten-free, so I usually use Panko gluten-free breadcrumbs. If the soup isn’t for him, I’ll use breadcrumbs made with dried, homemade sourdough bread.
• Egg. This is an essential ingredient in meatballs, especially ones with as little fast as those made from ground chicken. It’s largely the egg that holds them together.
• Parmesan cheese. This is such a great flavor in the soup. Nicely pungent but not overpowering.
• Onion powder for flavoring
• Garlic for that nice garlicky meatball
• Pepper. Another essential flavor.
• Oil for sautéing vegetables. I usually use light olive oil for a more neutral flavor.
• Onion, carrot, and celery for more flavor and a nutritional boost.
• Rosemary, basil, and thyme. These three herbs work together to create a mouthwatering aroma and flavor.
• Rice. I really like the texture of white rice, but with a little more cooking time, brown rice is also delicious.
• Chicken broth. This is the liquid for cooking your rice and making your soup, well, soupy.
• Cream for making the soup creamy after your rice is done cooking
• Salt and black pepper to taste.

Ingredient swaps and substitutions

Soup is a very easy dish to customize to your liking. It’s not really science like baking is. Notable exceptions are things like this gluten-free chicken and dumpling soup, where you can still customize the soup but definitely be wary about changing the dumpling recipe.

So, what I’m saying is that you can change a lot of things. Eventually, you end up with a completely different soup, but if something sounds good, feel free to try it!

Probably the biggest swap I get asked about is how to make it low-carb.

While I’m not a proponent of low-carb myself, I do understand that there are times when you want fewer carbs than others. With that said, If I wanted to make this soup low-carb, I’d probably use ground pork rinds instead of bread crumbs in the meatballs and cauliflower rice instead of rice in the soup. I know some people swirl beat egg or egg white into soup to take the place of noodles or rice, but that doesn’t appeal to me. One thing to note about using a low-carb substitute here is that you will need to cut the chicken broth volume almost in half since you won’t have the rice to absorb the liquid.

Another substitute you can make for the rice is orzo or another small pasta. 

Use different herbs. If there’s a different combination of herbs tag you like, feel free to make those swaps. Using Italian seasoning instead of individual herbs makes it easy. Incidentally, I like to use fresh herbs, but you can also use dried. ones

You don’t have to make it creamy. While I personally love the added heavy cream component, maybe you want a lighter soup, or to make it dairy-free, so leave it out.

Speaking of dairy-free, You can leave the parmesan cheese out of the meatballs and replace it with half the volume of bread crumbs in order to make them dairy-free.

The vegetables. Feel free to make changes to the vegetables as you like. I really think peas would be a nice addition, but my husband hates them, so I just stick to carrots, onions, and celery. Kale or baby spinach would also be a great addition. Other great options would be green beans or zucchini (which you would probably want to wait to add until the last five minutes or so of cooking)

You can also add more vegetables, such as potatoes, instead of using rice. This is a recipe change that will necessitate changing the volume of liquid and vegetable.

Instructions for Making Chicken Meatball Soup

1. Preheat oven to 400º
2. Combine all meatball ingredients together in a large bowl and mix well.
   
3. Shape the meatball mixture into tablespoon-sized balls. I use a cookie scoop to make my meatballs so that it’s fast easy, and I get a consistent size.
4. Arrange on a greased or parchment paper lined baking sheet, and bake for 15 minutes
   
5. While meatballs are baking, Heat oil in a 4 quart, or larger, dutch oven, and sauce chopped onion, carrots, and celery until vegetables are softened and the onions are translucent.
6. Add garlic, rosemary, basil, and thyme, and sauté, stirring, for another 30-60 seconds.
7. Remove meatballs from the oven and add them, rice, and chicken broth.
   
8. Cover the pot, and heat to a simmer over medium heat
9. Simmer for about 20 minutes until the rice is tender
10. Remove the lid, and use a fork to remove stemmy herbs (if you used dried herbs, you may not need to do this)
11. Add cream, salt, and pepper
12. Serve while hot

Frequently asked questions

Since I already answered questions about making this low carb in the ingredients and substitutions sections, I’ll skip that and answer other questions here.

Can this soup be made in the slow cooker? Yes. I would just skip sautéing the vegetables and put them straight in the crock pot with the chicken broth, rice, etc. I would also still cook the meatballs first.

Can I make this in the Instant Pot? Yes. You can do it similarly to the slow cooker, adding everything, including cooked meatballs, and selecting either the rice, or the soup setting to cook it. OR, you can use the Instant Pot to brown your meatballs (instead of putting them in the oven), and then add everything else to the pot and proceed.

Can this soup be frozen? Yes. I would freeze it before adding the cream. To thaw and use, place your container of soup in the refrigerator overnight, then dump it into a pot and heat slowly until it’s completely thawed. Then turn the heat up a bit and continue heating until steaming. Add the cream after heating the soup.

Can I use something other than chicken for the meatballs? Yes. Ground turkey is an excellent substitute. If you want to go with red meat such as ground beef, I suggest also using beef broth instead of chicken and perhaps adding a bit of tomato paste.

Can I just brown the chicken in the pot instead of making meatballs? yes, but then it’s ground chicken soup, rather than meatballs soup. The difference is, perhaps, semantics, but texturally and presentationally, it’s a different soup. I would also skip adding the egg, parmesan, and bread crumbs to the meat if you do that, and sauté the vegetables with the ground chicken once it’s about half done before adding the rest of the ingredients and cooking.

Other Chicken and Soup Recipes for You:

• Coconut Lime Chicken
• Italian Peasant Soup
• Instant Pot Chicken Soup
• How to Can Chicken
• Lemon Garlic Chicken Thighs

 

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