Chicken Kale Soup — This chicken soup with kale is easy, hearty, and healthy. It’s packed with flavor, texture, and is a full meal in itself!!
Table of Contents
- Hearty Chicken and Kale Soup Recipe
- Chicken Kale Soup Ingredients
- How to Make Chicken and Kale Soup
- Can I Use Different Greens in This Soup?
- Can I Freeze the Soup?
- Tips for Making Chicken and Kale Soup
- What to Serve with the Soup
- Recipe Video Tutorial
- More Easy Chicken Soup Recipes:
- Chicken Kale Soup Recipe
Hearty Chicken and Kale Soup Recipe
My family loves soup and I love making it for them because with soup there are always leftovers. Bonus for the cook.
This chicken and kale soup is easy, ready in 30 minutes, hearty, and healthy. It’s packed with flavor, texture, and even for those who think that soup can’t make a meal, this one will change your mind.
There are many recipes for sausage, kale, and white bean soup online but I opted to go with the ease of using shredded rotisserie chicken. The beans add heartiness and protein, while the kale, cabbage, and zucchini add texture. Even with soup I need texture and love anything green and the veggies are perfect.
Chicken Kale Soup Ingredients
To make this chicken kale white bean soup, you’ll need:
- Olive oil
- Vidalia onion
- Celery
- Green cabbage
- Garlic
- Chicken broth
- Shredded cooked chicken
- Cannellini beans
- Dried parsley and oregano
- Salt and pepper
- Kale
- Zucchini
- Lemon juice
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Chicken and Kale Soup
This is such a quick and easy kale chicken soup recipe! Here are the basic recipe steps:
- In a large dutch oven, sauté the onion and celery until soft.
- Add the cabbage and continue to cook until slightly wilted.
- Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant.
- Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.
- Let the mixture boil until the chicken is warmed through, the zucchini has softened, and the kale has wilted.
Can I Use Different Greens in This Soup?
Yes, this chicken and kale soup recipe is fairly flexible in that regard. If you don’t have kale on hand, spinach or a similar leafy green may be substituted.
Can I Freeze the Soup?
Yes, this soup will last up to 6 months in the freezer. I recommend freezing it in smaller containers so you can reheat one or two portions at a time.
Tips for Making Chicken and Kale Soup
I use low-sodium chicken broth, low-sodium beans, and add a bit of salt to the soup so I can control the overall salt level. The saltiness of low-sodium broth, beans, rotisserie chickens, and personal preferences for salt all vary, so salt to taste.
At any time while making the soup, if the overall liquid level is lower than you like and you prefer more broth, adding a cup or two of water is okay because at the end you will adjust the salt level.
Before adding the kale to the soup, remove the center rib. That part is extremely tough to chew and shouldn’t be added to this soup (use just the kale leaves).
What to Serve with the Soup
Serve the kale chicken soup with your favorite bread or rolls for dipping, or a side salad for some extra veggies and freshness. Here are my suggestions for side dishes:
- Classic Skillet Cornbread
- No-Knead Make-Ahead Rolls
- Texas Roadhouse Rolls
- Parker House Rolls
- Herb Garlic Rolls
- Classic House Salad with Vinaigrette
- BLT Chopped Salad with Homemade Buttermilk Dressing
- Kale Caesar Salad
- Easy Chopped Salad (has chicken but you can omit)
- Fall Harvest Salad
Recipe Video Tutorial
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Chicken Kale Soup
This white bean and kale soup soup is easy, hearty, and healthy. It’s packed with flavor, texture, and is a full meal in itself!
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cups sweet Vidalia or yellow onion, peeled and diced small (about 2 medium/large onions)
- 1 cup celery, sliced thin (about 2 stalks)
- 2 to 3 cups green cabbage, sliced into thin ribbons (about 1/2 small head of cabbage)
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely minced
- 64 ounces (8 cups) low-sodium chicken broth
- 3 to 4 cups shredded cooked chicken (use about 1 whole storebought rotisserie chicken to save time; or roast or cook your own chicken in a skillet)
- two 15-ounce cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 tablespoon dried parsley
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoons salt, or to taste
- 1 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
- leaves from 4 large stalks of kale, torn into bite-sized pieces (discard the center thick rib)
- 1 cup zucchini, diced small (from about 1 medium zucchini)
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice, optional (brightens up the flavor)
Instructions
- To a large Dutch oven or stockpot, add the oil, onion, celery, and sauté over medium-high heat for about 7 minutes, or until vegetables begin to soften. Stir intermittently.
- Add the cabbage and sauté for about 3 minutes, or until cabbage wilts and softens. Stir intermittently.
- Add the agarlic and sauté for another 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add the chicken broth, shredded chicken, cannellini beans, parsley, oregano, salt and pepper to taste, and boil about 5 minutes, or until chicken is warmed through.
- Add the kale, zucchini, optional lemon juice, and boil 1 to 2 minutes, or until kale has wilted and zucchini has softened.
- Taste soup and add salt or herbs, to taste. Amount of salt will vary based on how salty the brand of chicken broth used is, how salty the rotisserie chicken is, and personal preference. At any time while making the soup, if the overall liquid level is lower than you like and you prefer more broth, adding a cup or two of water is okay because at the end you will adjust the salt level.
- Serve immediately. Soup will keep airtight in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 4 months.
Notes
- Soup will keep airtight in the fridge for 5 to 7 days or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
10Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 657Total Fat: 29gSaturated Fat: 7gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 17gCholesterol: 184mgSodium: 6517mgCarbohydrates: 40gFiber: 8gSugar: 12gProtein: 60g
More Easy Chicken Soup Recipes:
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Easy 30-Minute Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup – Classic, comforting, and tastes just like grandma made but way easier and faster! This soup is AMAZING and it’ll be your new favorite recipe!
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Loaded Cheesy Chicken Potato Chowder – Potatoes, chicken, carrots, corn and more! Thick, creamy, rich, and wonderfully cheesy! Fast and easy comfort food that everyone loves!
Creamy Sweet Potato Chicken Soup – An EASY comfort food chicken soup recipe with sweet potatoes and more to keep you full and satisfied for hours!! Ready in 30 minutes with a flexible ingredients list based on what you have on hand!!
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I made this soup tonight for dinner, and we really enjoyed it. I left out the celery as I’m not a fan of that vegetable. I also use a all purpose seasoning named “Vegeta”. This is a hungarian all purpose seasoning, and I pretty much use it in place of salt. I used all the other spices you named off. This soup is a keeper! Thank you for sharing the recipe.
Thanks for the 5 star review and great to hear this is a keeper for you!
Chicken soups are my ever favorites! Picture of this one dragged me to this page. Also, love the addition of kale. thanks for sharing!
This recipe looks so tempting, yet I am hesitant because of the macros listed in the nutritional content. It says this makes 7 servings, with the serving size unspecified, and that one serving is 941 calories with 42g of fat and more than 9300mg of sodium! Is that accurate, Averie? This seems hard to believe because the ingredients–broth and a bunch of veggies with a few cups of chicken–look so healthy. I realize that I can plug the recipe into a website or app to calculate it, but that is a lot of effort for someone else’s recipe, plus I wanted to ask you here in case others can benefit from the Q&A. Thank you in advance for your reply.
You’re right for basically a bunch of vegetables and some chicken and broth, there’s no way that’s correct.
I bumped up the servings to 8 but what’s happening is that the program that ‘reads’ these recipes I think is reading 3 cups of chicken AND 4 cups of chicken, and anything that’s not written as 1 this, 1 that, 2 this, etc. it gets confused. Sorry…it’s a technology glitch I wish I could fix but I can’t and as you said, it’s quite a bit of work to plug and chug the numbers into an online program for the stats. In my opinion, there’s no way that a normal bowl of this could possibly have more than 250-300 calories and even that is high. Take that for what it’s worth though, my educated guess only.
SOOOOOO GOOD!! This recipe is a WINNER!! I will be making this soup again and again. I made it from scratch, simmered the dry beans in chicken broth until about 1/2 way done added 2 lbs. of chicken wings and cooked until tender, removed chicken wings to cool. While the wings were cooling I chopped and added the vegetables you called for in the recipe. I added some sliced carrots. When the carrots were just getting soft I added in the zucchini and kale and the garlic, parsley, oregano and pepper. I added some lemon pepper at the end instead of lemon juice, (I was out of lemon) and a little salt. It turned out AMAZING!! Thanks for another GREAT recipe!!
Thanks for the five star review and I’m glad you will make this again and again! And wow…hats off to you for doing scratch beans and chicken wings! Glad it’s a keeper for you!
Would this be okay in the crockpot?
I’m sure you could do it although you run the risk of things turning to mush as well as the onions not cooking like they would on the stovetop. For me when a recipe is so fast (under 30 minutes) it seems to just make it more complicated/longer than necessary than it needs to be if you put it in a slow cooker. I would just make as written!
Great soup! Even my non-soup-loving husband says it’s one of the best. We add grated Parmesan. Also, I love you can freeze it; I immediately froze half of it!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad even your non soup loving husband says it’s one of the best!
Excellent soup! I loved the addition of lemon for a bit of brightness.Thank you for a wonderful recipe.
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad you love the soup and I too love the pop of brightness from the lemon!
Love this soup! Left out the oil and used fry lite so everything ‘free’ on my SW plan! Amazing ❤️
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad this worked out great for you!
This was amazing! I have never left a recipe review before, but this was so easy and so delicious, that I had to comment. My whole family enjoyed this. My husband and I ate this for dinner and lunch twice in one week! Gave plenty of leftovers which is always my favorite! Will be making another batch tomorrow.
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad you loved it enough to leave your first ever recipe review/comment!
Hi! I didn’t see the nutritional facts for the soup. Was seeing if anyone an help? Thanks!
Underneath the directions, big orange box.
I’ve made this soup plenty of times and always turns out sooo good! I even made it for a soup competition and won first place!
Thanks for the five star review and I’m glad my recipe is winning competitions!
I made this so many times! I’ts become my go to for soup. I also tried to make it in an instant pot and it came out wonderfully as well! It’s a huge hit in the family ^^ Thank you!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad this is your go-to soup and that it comes out great in the instant pot as well!
Made this tonight and it was Fabulous! Omitted zucchini just because I didn’t feel like going to the store and added a dash of lemon pepper seasoning because one commenter mentioned it and it sounded great so I did. Amazing bursts of flavor and healthy, Yep! I’ll keep it!!
Thanks for the 5 star review and this was a winner! Lemon pepper is great in here and yes a flexible recipe. No need to go to the store just for a zucchini :)
This was a good hearty soup. I substituted spinach for kale. This definitely on my list of soups to make again.
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad you will make it again!
This was a very delicious recipe and I am not really a soup person. I used ground chicken, left out the zucchini and added a couple dashes of cayenne pepper. Definitely keeping this recipe
Thanks for trying the recipe and glad it’s a keeper for you!
Any idea what the nutrition on this is? I made it last night and it was amazing. I’ve never had cooked kale, I always eat it raw in smoothies and was reluctant since I do not like cooked spinach, however this was just delicious! Thanks for sharing your recipe.
There is a button that says NUTRITION underneath the recipe. It’s very approximate though…I mean someone could get 16 servings from this pot and another family could get 8. In general, I think this is a very healthy soup though!
Could I use northern beans instead?
Yes.
It snowed in the south today and that means soup! I didn’t want to go get a rotisserie chicken so I did make this partially in the crock pot. I used 5 thighs. I trimmed most of the fat and skin, seasoned them with salt and pepper and put them in the crock pot. I sauteed the onions, celery and garlic in the olive oil and added them, along with half the chicken stock and the spices, to the crock pot and let it cook on low all day. It smelled divine! When I was ready to make dinner I scooped out thighs and put them on a platter to cool. Then I poured the yummy broth into my stock pot and added the rest of the ingredients except for the kale and zucchini. While that boiled, I discarded the bone (the meat just fell off) and skin, diced the meat, and added it to the pot. Then I finished the dish. My husband could not stop complementing it. It was perfect for this snowy night!
I think you get all the compliments on this one since you improvised it into the Crock Pot and then transferred it into a stockpot. Sounds like a winner and glad you loved it!
What would the approximate measurement be if you are using baby kale?
I would say 3 to 4 cups loosely packed kale, of any variety. Play it by ear.
Why does a video show up on the Printer Friendly page? Makes me hesitate to sign up for emails
It’s a technical glitch that my team is working on. But it has nothing to do with signing up for emails…the two are unrelated and you can always un-subscribe with one click at any time.
Does this freeze well?
Soup generally freezes pretty well. However the kale may get a little softer after the thawing process. Just guessing here.
Can’t wait to try this soup plus several of the others that you have posted — thanks for posting them. Love the way you publish, too! BTW — San Diego is our favorite vacation destination .. just a bit jealous!!
Glad you love it here…me too!
Let me start by saying my fiancé and I are not soup people. I fall in the “soup is not a meal” camp. But, I decided to give this recipe a try anyway because it looked hearty and healthy. OMG. We both raved about it – it was so delicious! I did make a few small tweaks: added sliced carrots at the beginning (with the onions and celery), a dash of red pepper flakes, and a dash of lemon pepper (in addition to the fresh squeezed lemon juice). The soup was amazing and we have leftovers for days! So happy I tried this recipe…excited to try a few more now!
I’m so glad you loved the soup and went out on a limb and gave it a try! I love your tweaks, lemon pepper and red pepper flakes, can’t go wrong there.
All of my soups, even the vegetarian/vegan ones, are still satisfying. You definitely will feel full and not like you’re missing a meal. LMK what you try next!
Made this soup last night! My family and I really enjoyed it. It was our first time eating kale! The rotisserie chicken was so flavorful that I didn’t add salt or pepper. I did add parsnips and carrots so it would resemble my usual chicken soup recipe, so everyone would try it. When they asked me to pack this soup for lunch the next day, I knew I found a winner! Great way to get a warm, healthy dinner on the table in 30 min.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
Your first time eating kale…amazing and so glad you tried it now! And yes, it’s a keeper when the family asks for it for their bagged lunches for the next day!
I just wanted to tell you how much I really needed this soup. I am on weight watchers and this is so low in points (my calculations). I did something different though- I added 4 tsp of dried thyme with the onions and celery. I went to a cooking school in New Orleans and they used thyme for a base of a soup and I thought it would be perfect for this recipe. I also didnt add the parsley, oregano or the 2nd can of beans.
I will make this again and not add any of the green cabbage. It turns slimy really quickly and I cant imagine it would reheat well.
Hope this helps other people who thought it needed a little something! :)
Glad you enjoyed the soup and I love thyme but it’s a distinct flavor and some people are sensitive to it so I watch it when I use it for my blog recipes. The cabbage doesn’t turn slimy at all, promise!
If you liked this one, try this https://www.averiecooks.com/2016/01/weight-loss-vegetable-soup.html 0 points by my calculations
This looks amazing! My hubby loves Kale (& our 2 rabbits), however I am trying to like it! Since I’m not a big pepper fan, I am bound and determined to find some recipes that I will in turn love Kale. It’s so healthy! Going to the store tomorrow and I am picking up supplies!
And this soup has so many other things going on that the kale doesn’t ‘jump out’ at you flavorwise. Hope you love the soup – LMK how it goes!
Would this recipe convert to the crock pot with uncooked chicken breasts?
Possibly but I haven’t tried it that way so can’t say for sure. It’s a fast and easy soup to make and I think that putting it in the slow cooker could just turn it to mush and just create more work than you need bc it’s ready in 30 mins on the stove.
I didn’t have cooked chicken on hand but plenty of turkey! This is going in my “go to” book!
Wonderful! Glad it worked great with turkey!
This was delicious and fresh! Nice way to use up a lot of garden veggies. I added some white balsamic vinegar and served with fresh grated parmesan and toasted slivered almonds! Delicious!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Love that you added white balsamic, parm, and almonds – great thinking!
Made this tonight and it was good! Great way to use up garden veggies, and love that it uses rotisserie chicken! Both my hubby and I thought that it needed a little something tho. Thanks for an easy and fresh-tasting dinner!
Glad you enjoyed the recipe overall and sometimes when I think something needs a little something I either try a touch more salt/pepper or sometimes a splash of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, depending on my mood and what I think it needs, but everyone’s tastes are different.
Chicken soups are my ever favorites! Picture of this one dragged me to this page. :) No wonder! Also, love the addition of kale. thanks for sharing!
Wonderful chicken soup recipe. Thanks a lot for sharing the recipe.
This looks good Averie! I love kale in soups. So hearty and delicious.
I do too and it makes you feel automatically healthier :)
oh yummy!!
All beautiful soups. Thank you Averie.
Such a wonderfully healthy soup recipe!
This looks so good! i have a question though about the amount of broth needed. Did you mean to write 32 ounces or 8 cups?
Thanks for the catch! I updated the recipe. It’s 64 ounces (8 cups).
Soup is one of my favorite things. I love the combo of the beans and chicken – this makes me want to cozy up on the couch with a bowl and a book!
It has been so cold in San Diego the past week or so, we had a high wind advisory over the weekend with 50mph winds! And cozying up with soup was in order!
This looks like the perfect meal to me! I could almost pull this off without a trip to the store. I just need onion and wouldn’t want to leave it out. I’ve been on a big Vidalia kick– I caramelize a big batch almost every weekend and they don’t last very long.
I love that you caramelize a batch of Vidalia onions every weekend. They wouldn’t last long with me either! I think you’ll love this soup! LMK if you try it.