Chickpea Soup with Spinach, Tomatoes, and Basil

Directions

Soak chickpeas overnight or for at least 8 hours in cold water. Drain chickpeas and discard water, and pick out any loose skins that have come off. Put chickpeas in heavy soup pot with homemade chicken stock bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until chickpeas are tender. This will depend on how fresh the dried chickpeas were, but for me it took about an hour. Use a spoon or stock skimmer to remove any foam that appears. When chickpeas are tender, heat olive oil in heavy frying pan, then saute onions about 5 minutes, until fairly soft. Add garlic and cook 2-3 minutes more. Add onions and garlic to soup pot with diced tomatoes . Let soup simmer on low heat about 30 minutes. Add chopped spinach to soup and simmer 15-30 minutes more. I used my beloved Braun Immersion Blender at this point to slightly break up the ingredients. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can put about 1/3 of the soup into a food processor or blender and pulse a few times. You can skip this step completely too, if you’d like a chunkier soup. Stir in chopped basil and cook 5 minutes. Season soup with salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste and serve hot.