Chickpea Noodle Soup With Lemon and Dill

Recipes and Photography by Shelly Westerhausen Worcel

Warm up the cold days with this chickpea noodle soup that brings in the flavors of the harvest, from the new book Every Season is Soup Season.

This chickpea noodle soup is a delicious Sunday project for when it’s too cold to be outside and you are craving comfort food like homemade noodles. You can add chicken to make the soup more traditional, but it is delicious as a vegetarian soup with hearty chickpeas, a burst of umami from the miso paste, and brightness from lemon and fresh dill.

Let’s get started!

Serves 6

What You’ll Need:

For the egg noodles:

1½ cups [210 g] all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten

For the chickpea noodle soup:

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 celery stalks, diced
2 carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
1 white onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
Three 2-inch [5 cm] strips lemon peel
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes, plus more for serving
4 cups [960 ml] low-sodium vegetable broth
One 15-ounce [430 g] can chickpeas, rinsed
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons yellow miso
1½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice
¼ cup [3 g] chopped fresh dill
Optional: shreddedchicken

What You’ll Do:

For the egg noodles:

An Authentic Farmhouse in Ojai

Add the flour and salt to a food processor fitted with a blade attachment, and pulse a few times to mix. Add the eggs and 1 tablespoon of water and pulse until a rice-size crumb forms. Use clean hands to gather the dough into a ball and knead it on a clean counter to form a smooth dough, about 30 seconds. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 30minutes.
Divide the dough in half and keep the half you aren’t using covered. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin into a rough square 1/8-inch [4 mm] thick. Use a sharp knife or pizza cutter to cut roughly 2 x ½-inch
[5 cm x 13 mm] strips (these don’t have to be exact). Set aside the strips in a bowl and repeat with the remaining dough.

For the chickpea noodle soup:

In a large Dutch oven or stockpot over medium heat, warm the oil. Add the celery, carrot and onion, and sauté until softened, 7 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic, lemon peel, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes, and sauté until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add the vegetable broth, chickpeas, bay leaves and 2 cups [475 ml] of water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer for 15 minutes to develop flavor.
Add the noodles to the pot, cover and simmer until the noodles are cooked all the way through, about 6 minutes.
Scoop out 1 cup [240 ml] of broth from the soup and whisk the miso into it. Add it back into the soup along with the lemon juice, and stir to combine. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. Serve, topped with the dill and more red pepper flakes.