The rich coconut aroma of this easy Coconut Chicken Soup will warm your belly and soul! Loaded with many different vegetables and lean chicken breast, this soup will keep you full and satisfied for a long time.
We all crave warm comforting soups that fill our bellies and warm our souls sometimes. This coconut chicken soup recipe combines everyone’s favorite classic soup ingredients of chicken and fresh vegetables with a bit of an exotic flavor – coconut! The result is a wonderful mix of familiar comfort food combined with a new exciting flavor that I think you will fall in love with (I did!)
How to make coconut chicken soup
This coconut chicken soup comes together in one pot and cooks very quickly. Just make sure all your ingredients are prepared and ready to go before you start cooking, and then it’s just a matter of adding them all into the pot:
Step 1: Season the sliced chicken breast with salt and pepper, and sauté it in a soup pot over high heat for 4-5 minutes.
Step 2: Add all the aromatics: onion, garlic, and ginger. These will give a lot of flavor and warmth to the soup. Continue stir-frying for 2-3 minutes.
Step 3: Add the zucchini and pumpkin, give everything a stir.
Step 4: Add the rest of the ingredients, including the coconut milk and the chicken broth.
Step 5: Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the pumpkin is fully cooked.
As the soup cooks and simmers on the stovetop, your kitchen will fill with a delicious, warm aroma. You’ll be counting down the minutes until you can dig into a big bowl of coconut chicken soup!
Step 6: Take off the heat and serve! I like to garnish with fresh cilantro leaves but that’s totally optional (not everyone likes cilantro).
It’s healthy as well as tasty!
This soup is loaded with many different vegetables that make it easy to meet your daily vegetable needs: green zucchini, red bell peppers, and beautiful orange pumpkin. The wonderful fresh colors of these vegetables are due to all the different vitamins and nutrients that the vegetables contain: Zucchini is rich in Potassium, Vitamin C, and Vitamin B-6. Red bell peppers and pumpkin are both loaded with Vitamin A.
A good way to make sure you are getting a variety of nutrients from your foods is by “eating the rainbow” – trying to make sure that you eat as many different colors of fruits and vegetables as possible each day. Luckily, that is easy to do with delicious and colorful soups like this one!
This soup also contains lean chicken breast, which will help fill you up because of the protein in the chicken. All the protein and fiber from the soup’s ingredients will make you feel full and satisfied and will help you stay full longer.
One serving of coconut chicken soup has 17.1 g protein, 11.6 g carbs, and 12.7 g fat.
This soup reheats really well. In fact, it tastes even better the next day after all the flavors continue to meld together overnight. So don’t be afraid of making a big batch of this soup – you’ll want leftovers the next day!
More healthy soup recipes
I am a huge fan of healthy and easy soups and there are plenty to choose from here on Diabetes Strong. Here are two of my favorites:
When you’ve tried this healthy Coconut Chicken Soup, please don’t forget to let me know how you liked it and rate the recipe in the comments below!
Coconut Chicken Soup
Ingredients
- 1 lb. chicken breast, thinly sliced
- Salt & pepper, to taste
- 1 tbsp. coconut oil (or vegetable oil)
- 1 small onion, thinly sliced into half moons
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 inch piece ginger, peeled and minced
- 1 medium zucchini, cut into quarters lengthwise and diced
- 0.75 lb. pumpkin, cubed into ½ inch pieces (1 cup)
- 1 red bell pepper, seeds removed and thinly sliced
- 1 small chili or jalapeño pepper, seeds removed and thinly sliced
- 14 oz. lite coconut milk (1 can)
- 2 cups chicken broth
- Juice of 1 lime
- Handful cilantro leaves (optional)
Instructions
- Season the sliced chicken breast generously with salt and pepper.
- In a large (5-6 quart) soup pot, heat the coconut oil over high heat and add the chicken breast. Stir-fry over high heat for 4-5 minutes, or until the chicken is no longer pink on the outside.
- Add the sliced onion, minced garlic, and minced ginger and continue to stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes.
- Add the diced zucchini and cubed pumpkin, and stir. Add the sliced bell pepper, sliced chili or jalapeño pepper, coconut milk, chicken broth, and lime juice. Stir everything together.
- Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the pumpkin is fully cooked.
- Season with additional salt and pepper, if desired. Garnish with cilantro leaves to serve.
Nutrition Info Per Serving
I made this soup for my Mom who is newly diabetic and she loved it. Does anyone know if this soup would freeze well?
how much is one serving?? one cup?? looks really good
It will depend on how much you boil it down. The liquid and vegetables should be about a cup per serving and then chicken comes on top
This soup is fantastic! This will be a staple in our home!
This soup was so delicious; I added mushrooms, carrots, peas and bok choy. Also some curry and a bit more coconut milk. So good, thanks for the recipe.
How many main dish servings does this make? BTW, I plan to use butternut squash if my store doesn’t have small fresh pumpkins.
This serves 6 people. You can see servings listed in all our recipes just below the preparation time.
Hope you enjoy it
Delicious! I can’t believe I tried this as I am not a squash fan at all. I only liked fried zucchini. And when I tried this and I could not find pumpkin, fresh or canned. So I used this squash from the produce, it was butternut. I never cooked with it before. After I assembled everything and it melded? To die for. Very very good. I added more coconut milk and more salt and pepper. Very good, rich and hearty Thanks!
Question? How do
Cut pumpkin? Do you mean an actual
Pumpkin?
Yes, the yellow pieces you see in the dish are pieces of pumpkin. If you don’t want to cut it yourself some supermarkets sell them precut
Can you use sweet potato instead of pumpkin?
From a flavour profile, I think you could, but I’m not sure the sweet potato will hold its shape.
Ok! Thanks. So I’ve made this and the pumpkin was the hardest part. Cutting it seemed difficult and dangerous but I did it! Can’t wait to taste it when it’s done!
I used sweet potato and the shape held nicely. Also I’ll add more spice for us…nice dish.
Glad that worked out and that you enjoyed it
Welcome to the Diabetes Strong family Kate. I made the soup yesterday and it was great! I hope you will make more recipes for us people with diabetes 🙂
Thank you so much, Molly! I am so glad you made the soup and enjoyed it, that means a lot to me. 🙂