Chicken Kale Soup 🍗🥬 This chicken soup with white beans, kale, zucchini, and more is easy, hearty, and healthy! Packed with flavor and texture, it’s a full meal in itself! Perfect for quick weeknight dinners and leftovers freeze and reheat great!
Easy 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 and a game-changer on busy days.
- This chicken and kale soup is easy, ready in 30 minutes, hearty, healthy, gluten, and dairy-free. The ultimate comfort food, it’s packed with flavor and texture. 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. I love to serve mine topped with a sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
- Naturally gluten-free and accidentally healthy, this is a winner of a chicken soup dinner.
- This recipe has been on my website since 2016 and is a fan favorite for great reason!
Chicken Kale Soup Ingredients
- Extra virgin olive oil, Vidalia onion, celery, green cabbage, and garlic: These create the savory vegetable base for the soup. Vidalia onion adds a little natural sweetness, but another onion may be used if needed.
- Chicken broth: I recommend low-sodium chicken broth so the soup does not become too salty. Chicken bone broth or vegetable broth can also be used.
- Shredded cooked chicken: Rotisserie chicken keeps this soup super quick and easy, but leftover shredded chicken breasts, skinless chicken thighs, or turkey also work well.
- Cannellini beans: These make the soup heartier and more filling. Great Northern beans can be used if you cannot find cannellini beans.
- Dried parsley, oregano, salt, and black pepper: These season the soup simply without overpowering it. Fresh herbs can also be used if you have them.
- Kale and zucchini: Curly kale or Lacinato kale both work well. Remove the tough center rib from the kale and use just the leaves. Zucchini adds extra veggies and cooks quickly.
- Fresh lemon juice: Adds brightness and wakes up the flavors before serving.
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
- 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 and then simmer until the chicken is warmed through, the zucchini has softened, and the kale has wilted. Ladle into a bowl and enjoy!
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!
Karen
Excellent soup! I loved the addition of lemon for a bit of brightness. Thank you for a wonderful recipe.
Suzan
Recipe Video Tutorial
Chicken Kale Soup
Video
Equipment
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.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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What to Serve with Chicken Kale Soup
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Originally posted February 3, 2016 and reposted January 17, 2025 with updated text.
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.