Quick and easy soups made with canned beans have become my favorite go-to easy meal when I’m too tired to cook and too broke to eat out. I’ve made several variations of this soup over the years, including the viral Rosemary Garlic White Bean Soup, but this week I made a Mediterranean-inspired Lemony Chickpea Soup. It’s fast, easy, has bright flavors, and pairs perfectly with some crusty bread for a simple no-fuss meal.
This incredibly simple Lemony Chickpea soup combines puréed chickpeas, broth, and some seasoning to create a perfectly comforting and flavorful bowl of soup. And since most of these ingredients are shelf-stable, this is a pantry meal you can make any time with no planning head.
Ingredients for Lemony Chickpea Soup
Here’s all you’ll need to make this deliciously easy chickpea soup:
- Garlic: A hefty dose of garlic gives this soup a deep savory flavor and perfectly balances the bright lemon.
- Olive Oil: Olive oil is used to sauté the garlic and give the soup a little bit of richness in the mouthfeel.
- Chickpeas: This recipe uses canned chickpeas to make the entire preparation fast and easy. If you prefer to use chickpeas cooked from dry, you’ll need about 4-5 cups of cooked chickpeas.
- Chicken Broth: Broth adds a lot of savory depth to the soup as well as the salt needed to make each flavor pop.
- Lemon: A splash of lemon juice brightens up the flavors in the soup, provides a nice contrast to the savory garlic flavor, and gives the soup a fresh Mediterranean flavor.
- Seasoning: The seasoning profile for the soup is fairly simple with just a little bit of thyme, oregano, red pepper, and black pepper. Keeping the seasoning light gives the soup a bright and fresh flavor.
What to Serve with Lemony Chickpea Soup
This chickpea soup is just begging for some crusty bread for dipping, so I highly suggest making a loaf of our easy no-knead bread or focaccia rolls. Or, if you need something a little faster, homemade garlic bread would also be amazing with this soup. And, if you want some veggies on the side, a simple side salad would be awesome, or you could go with something a little heftier, like tortellini salad.
Tips for Smooth Chickpea Soup
Canned chickpeas can often be a bit on the firm side, so to make sure your chickpea soup is extra smooth you may need to pre-boil the chickpeas, but it depends largely on the brand of chickpeas. Some canned chickpeas are quite soft, while others are very firm or borderline undercooked.
If your chickpeas are very firm, simply empty the can and liquid into a small saucepot and simmer them for about 10 minutes. Let the chickpeas cool before transferring to the blender to purée.
Lemony Chickpea Soup
Servings 4 (1.25 cups each)Ingredients
- 3 15oz. cans chickpeas, divided ($2.67)
- 4 cloves garlic ($0.32)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.32)
- 2 cups chicken broth ($0.26)
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano ($0.05)
- 1 pinch crushed red pepper ($0.02)
- 1 lemon ($0.79)
- 1/4 tsp salt (or to taste) ($0.02)
- 1/4 tsp Freshly cracked black pepper ($0.02)
Instructions
- Add 2 of the cans of chickpeas to a blender with the liquid in the can and purée until smooth.* Drain the third can of chickpeas and set aside.
- Mince the garlic and add it to a saucepot with the olive oil. Sauté the garlic over medium heat for about one minute, or just until the garlic becomes very fragrant.
- Add the puréed chickpeas, drained chickpeas, chicken broth, thyme, oregano, red pepper, salt, and pepper to the soup pot with the garlic. Stir to combine.
- Allow the soup to come up to a simmer, then simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- While the soup simmers, zest and juice half of the lemon (you'll need about 2 Tbsp juice and ½ tsp zest). Slice the remaining lemon for garnish.
- After the soup has simmered, add 2 Tbsp juice and a pinch of lemon zest, then stir to combine.
- Taste the soup and adjust the salt, lemon juice, pepper, or other herbs to your liking. The amount of salt needed to properly flavor the soup will depend on the salt content of your broth, so make sure to salt to taste at the end.
- Garnish the soup with the remaining lemon slices and zest, a drizzle of olive oil, and more pepper if desired, then serve with crusty bread and enjoy!
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Notes
Nutrition
How to Make Lemony Chickpea Soup – Step by Step Photos
Add two 15oz. cans of chickpeas to a blender, with the liquid in the can, and purée until smooth. If the brand of chickpeas you’re using are extra firm, you may want to simmer the chickpeas in the liquid for about 10 minutes before blending to soften them more. Let the simmered chickpeas cool slightly before blending, as blending hot liquids can be dangerous.
Mince four cloves of garlic (or more, if you’d like!) and add them to a saucepot with 2 Tbsp olive oil. Sauté the minced garlic over medium heat for about one minute, or just until the garlic becomes very fragrant.
Add the puréed beans, one can of drained chickpeas, 2 cups of chicken broth, ½ tsp dried thyme, ½ tsp dried oregano, 1 pinch of crushed red pepper, ¼ tsp salt, and ¼ tsp pepper to the pot. Stir to combine and bring the soup up to a simmer over medium heat.
Let the soup simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, zest and juice half of a lemon (you’ll need 2 Tbsp juice and about ½ tsp zest). Slice the other half of the lemon to use as a garnish.
After the soup has simmered for about 10 minutes, add 2 Tbsp lemon juice to the soup along with a pinch of lemon zest.
Taste the soup and adjust the salt, lemon juice, zest, or other herbs to your liking. The amount of salt needed will depend on the salt content of the broth used and it can really help the flavors pop, so make sure to salt to taste at the end.
Garnish the soup with the remaining slices of lemon and lemon zest, extra pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. We also had some parsley in the fridge, so we added some of that for color.
Another Budget Bytes winner! Cheap, filling, easy to make (this seriously took me less than half an hour from getting out the ingredients to digging in), vegetarian-friendly (I also worship at the alter of Better Than Bouillon and their vegetarian/no chicken bases :D), and meal preps like a dream. This is such a great late winter/early spring dish, when there’s a bumper crop of citrus to take advantage of. And the mouthfeel is so pleasant – substantial and filling, but not cloying or overly heavy.
I really enjoyed this one! I appreciate the simplicity and that it’s made with ingredients I always have on hand.
This was a hit! Whole family gobbled it up. Great sub for a quick Greek Avgolemono. I think I’ll blend all of the chickpeas next go ’round.
This was so good and so easy.
This soup was sooo good! My husband and I ended up using the zest and juice from a whole lemon, and veggie broth since we’re vegetarian (the Better than Bouillon no chicken base).
Is there any chance you could start tagging recipes with a vegetarian/vegan-adjacent tag when applicable? I saw this recipe by chance on instagram, but usually I only check your vegetarian/vegan tags on this site for recipes. It made me realize I’m missing out on a lot of your recipes when the only non-vegetarian ingredient is simple (like the broth in this case, which can be easily swapped out). It would be really helpful if in the future you could have a veggie-adjacent tag, like if only one or two simple ingredients need to be swapped out or removed to become veg-friendly. Just a thought!
I was impressed. This recipe sounded weird, but it was cheap to make andwas actually quite nice.
So good, so healthy, so easy, so affordable! I had a small butternut squash I needed to use, so I diced that up and added it with the garbanzo beans and it gave it an extra element. I also added about a tablespoon of diced parsley at the end of cooking and adding more lemon to the serving I ate. Pair with toasted bread with butter and it was amazing. Definitely adding this to my rotation!
This is one of those recipes that tastes better and more complex than it should for how simple it is. I liked it a lot both before and after I added the lemon so It’s nice to know I can enjoy it both ways – I don’t always have fresh lemon in the house. I used Better Than Bouillon vegetable broth so I could share with my vegetarian housemate and also eat it Fridays of Lent. I suspect chicken broth would make it even better.
A wonderful flavor profile for spring! I happened to have some leftover ricotta honey flatbread, which was a great dipper. Next time I might drain two cans of beans, as I prefer a thicker soup.
I’m not a huge fan of chickpeas, but I love lemons and garlic so I thought I would try this. Instead of chicken broth, I used Better Than Bullion “no chicken” base (vegetarian). Wow! A wonderfully convenient recipe that results in delicious flavor! My husband said he could eat it 7 days a week! Thank you, Beth!
I cooked two cups dried garbanzo, probably measured wrongish, put the zest in too early, probably didn’t blend the correct proportions (not sure how this happens…..glass of wine involved). Managed to add the lemon juice at the end and it is DELICIOUS. The upshot is that maybe u didn’t blend the right proportion of beans but it is excellent.
Btw, I cooked 2 cups of dry garbanzos and this yielded 5 cups cooked beans, just right for this recipe.
Delicious and simple but it’s missing something… Maybe some shelled sunflower seeds, pepitas, or chopped pistachios? Garlic bread on the side is a necessity.
Flavors are great! I added some chopped parsley to mine, just doesn’t seem right to have a lemony Mediterranean dish without it.
Absolutely delicious !!
Will make again and again. Thank you !
I haven’t tried this yet, but I want to – wondering if the leftovers would freeze well?
I haven’t frozen this recipe yet, but bean & chickpea recipes tend to freeze REALLY well. The olive oil might separate out and need to be stirred back in once it’s thawed, but yes, this should freeze great!
Amazing, so simple and delicious. It’s like if lemon garlic hummus was a soup. Thanks Beth! Another home run.
This soup popped up in my Instagram feed just as I was contemplating what to make for lunch. :-D
It turned out beautifully and the whole family loved it! The good amount of chickpeas turns this into a complete light meal, and the tanginess from the lemon just harmonises beautifully with the other flavours. Definitely one I’ll make again!