Chicken Gnocchi Chowder
Olive Garden's cream soup, rebuilt out of powder and a foil pouch.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 36 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 3 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Winter / snow
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Shelf-stable gnocchi | 6 oz | vacuum-sealed, pasta aisle, no refrigeration |
|---|---|---|
| Foil-packet chicken | 5 oz | |
| Whole milk powder | 1/3 cup | replaces the milk and cream |
| Chicken bouillon | 2 tsp | |
| Flour | 1 tbsp | the thickener |
| Dried onion, carrot, and celery | 3 tbsp total | |
| Freeze-dried spinach | 1/4 cup | |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Dried thyme | 1/4 tsp | |
| Black pepper and salt | to taste | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | stands in for the butter |
Method
- Put the dried vegetables, spinach, bouillon, garlic, and thyme in the pot with 600 ml of water. Bring it to a boil and hold it there two minutes so the vegetables rehydrate.
- Take the pot off the heat. Whisk in the milk powder and flour together, hard, until no lumps are left. Lumps now are lumps forever.
- Back on low heat. Stir constantly for three or four minutes until it coats the spoon. Do not let it hit a hard boil or the milk powder will scorch on the bottom.
- Add the gnocchi and simmer four minutes, stirring so nothing sticks.
- Kill the heat, fold in the chicken and the oil, and let it sit two minutes off the stove to finish thickening.
- Salt and pepper at the end. Bouillon is already salty.
The original is a roux soup: butter, flour, milk, and cream, cooked in a kitchen with a fridge. On trail the fat and the dairy both come from whole milk powder, and the roux gets flattened into a single flour-and-powder slurry whisked in off the heat. That order matters. Flour dumped into hot liquid clumps, and a lumpy pot on a canister stove does not recover.
Gnocchi is the reason to bother. Vacuum-sealed potato gnocchi is shelf-stable and cooks in about four minutes, so it does the work of a starch and a thickener at once while the flour handles the body. The dried mirepoix will never taste like sauteed vegetables, but it puts something other than salt in the broth.
Packing
Milk powder, flour, bouillon, dried vegetables, and spices go in one bag at home so camp is two pours. Gnocchi and the chicken pouch ride separately. Check the gnocchi package for a refrigerate line before you buy it.
Variations
- Swap the chicken pouch for a second bag of gnocchi and use vegetable bouillon. It stops being nut-free-only and becomes vegetarian.
- Instant mashed potato flakes will thicken it faster than flour if you skip the roux entirely.
- A hard cheese grated in at the end adds fat you will want in cold weather.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/web-stories/top-secret-olive-garden-soup