Chicken Tortellini Soup

Back to school, back to work, back to the rhythm. The holidays are packed away — Danielle has a system for this too, naturally, involving labeled bins and a storage rack in the garage that rivals a warehouse operation. The tree is gone. The lights are down. And the house returns to its weekday shape: alarm at 5:30, coffee by 5:45, lunches packed by 6:30, kids out the door by 7:15, silence by 7:20.

I started a new job this week — rewiring a hundred-year-old house in Spanish Town, the historic neighborhood near the Capitol. Old houses are my favorite work and my worst headache. The wiring in a hundred-year-old house is a mystery novel written by people who didn't believe in blueprints. You open a wall and find knob-and-tube wiring from the 1920s running next to Romex from the 1970s running next to something that doesn't appear to be wiring at all but is somehow carrying current. It's archaeological. You're excavating layers of decisions made by electricians who are long dead and whose choices you must now live with and, frequently, undo.

But the house is beautiful. Twelve-foot ceilings, pine floors, plaster walls, transoms above every door. It belongs to a young couple — teachers, both of them, which means they don't have a lot of money, which means I'm going to do the best work I can at a price they can afford, because teachers are what Danielle is, and you take care of your own. I told them I'd have the house rewired in three weeks. It'll take four. It always takes four.

Made a big pot of split pea soup on Wednesday. January soup. The kind that's thick enough to stand a spoon in, made with a ham bone I saved from the Christmas ham, because you never throw away a ham bone. You freeze it and you wait for a January night that's cold enough to deserve it, and then you simmer that bone for three hours with split peas and carrots and onion and garlic, and the marrow seeps out and the peas collapse and the whole thing turns into this green, smoky, impossibly comforting bowl of warmth. It's not Cajun. It's not anything. It's just soup. But soup is what January is for.

Rémy started a new thing this week: he wants to learn French. Not school French — Cajun French. He's been asking me to teach him words, and I've been doing it at dinner, one word per meal. Monday: "lagniappe" — something extra, a bonus. Tuesday: "fais do-do" — a dance party. Wednesday: "nonc" — uncle. Thursday: "couillon" — fool, dummy (Danielle was not pleased with this one). By Friday he was stringing them together: "Nonc Pierre is not a couillon." Pierre, when informed of this assessment, nodded. The boy isn't wrong.

The split pea soup did its job on Wednesday, but by the end of the week — four days into a rewire that’s already telling me it’ll run long, Rémy conjugating Cajun French at the dinner table, Danielle running the household like a logistics operation — I needed something that came together faster but hit just as hard. This chicken tortellini soup is that soup: rich broth, soft pasta, a meal that tells everybody at the table that somebody was paying attention when they came home.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 medium carrots, sliced into rounds
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups cooked shredded chicken (rotisserie works fine)
9 oz refrigerated cheese tortellini
2 cups fresh baby spinach
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, drained
Grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

Instructions

Saute the vegetables. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot over medium heat. Add onion and celery and cook for 4–5 minutes until softened. Add garlic and carrots and cook another 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
Season and build the broth. Stir in Italian seasoning, thyme, salt, and pepper. Pour in the chicken broth and drained diced tomatoes. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
Add the chicken. Reduce heat to a steady simmer and stir in the shredded chicken. Let simmer for 10 minutes to let the flavors come together.
Cook the tortellini. Add the tortellini directly to the pot and cook according to package directions, typically 5–7 minutes, until tender and pillowy.
Finish with spinach. Stir in the baby spinach and cook for 1–2 minutes until just wilted. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with freshly grated Parmesan. Serve with crusty bread if you have it, or don’t — it holds up on its own.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Tortellini Soup — Because January Demands Something Hot in a Bowl