This spinach and artichoke chicken stew was inspired by the classic appetizer dip! I wanted to turn the creamy dip into a main dish in a very hands-off approach utilizing my crock-pot. This stew requires literally 10 minutes of hands-on time, and tastes like the classic dip we all know and love! It’s also filled with good-for-you ingredients and is nutritious and so satisfying and filling! It’s really a meal-in-one with the protein from the chicken, lots of veggies from spinach, onions, and artichokes, and some fiber-filled carbohydrates from the beans. I usually like to serve this stew with a side though…recent favorites have been baked sweet potatoes with cinnamon butter, or the sweet potato biscuits recipe already on the blog. 🙂

I am very excited to bring you another savory recipe today! Most of the recipes I create tend to be more sweet and baked goods. After baking literally 5 batches of peanut butter chocolate chip bread  within one week, not to mention other desserts, I challenged myself to make a savory recipe. I love how this recipe test doubled as dinner then for us!

Not to mention, since I’m only cooking for two, we also had leftovers for another night too! In fact, as written we got 5 large servings from this meal. I’d say to expect to get anywhere from 4-6 servings, more if you are serving sides along this (can I suggest these sweet potato biscuits) or if you add more broth!

Both my husband and I definitely prefer THICK soups. When trying to decide what to name this recipe, I googled “difference between soup and stew”…and found out that really what we love is STEW! Stew contains very little cooking liquid and is much thicker than soup, which contains more liquid.

Speaking of thick soups…have you tried this super simple chili recipe yet? It might not be considered chili season now (or crockpot/soup recipes for that matter…), but it’s delicious anytime of year! Personally, I would much prefer just using my crockpot in the warmer spring/summer months than even using my stove or turning on my oven! I’m all about minimal clean-up too and LOVE when all I have to do is wash my crock-pot! Not to mention having dinner all cooked for me when I get home from work. ?

Here’s what you’ll need to make this spinach and artichoke chicken stew:

Ingredients and Substitution Ideas

Chicken

I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts for this soup! I love how the crockpot makes the chicken so tender that you can simply and very easily shred the chicken with a fork after it’s finished cooking! You could also use chicken thighs if you want dark meat.

Onion

The onion helps provide delicious flavor to this soup! I HIGHLY recommend taking the extra step and sautéing the onion and garlic first before adding to the crock pot for that caramelized flavor. However, if you are short on time, you can skip cooking the onion first!

Garlic

In full disclosure, I was out of fresh garlic cloves when I made this recipe so I used refrigerated garlic paste (from the refrigerated section in the produce section). 1 teaspoon of fresh garlic paste equals 1 garlic clove. You can also substitute garlic powder in place of the fresh garlic. I don’t recommend leaving the garlic out though, as it definitely adds a lot of flavor to this soup!

Olive oil

I used a bit of olive oil to sauté the onion and garlic! Any type of oil will work, and if you skip the step of cooking the onion, you can skip this!

Broth

The first time I made this recipe, I used leftover cooking liquid when I cooked dried beans. I’ve also used vegetable broth and bouillon cubes and water! Chicken broth and bone broth would work too.

Spinach

Obviously, you need spinach for a spinach artichoke recipe! BUT. I love how you have some options here. You can use either fresh OR frozen spinach. I used a small bag of fresh spinach, but using a box (or bag) of frozen spinach would also work here! If you don’t have spinach, you could sub kale or other greens, but then it’s not really spinach artichoke soup ?

Artichoke hearts

To be honest, artichokes are definitely not something I usually buy! They are very, very mild in taste. I used a full can of pre-quartered artichoke hearts canned in water. If you buy whole artichokes, I’d recommend roughly chopping them up before adding them to the soup.

Ricotta cheese

A lot of spinach artichoke dip recipes rely on cream cheese for the creaminess factor, but I’ve really never been a fan of cream cheese (or cheesecake, for that matter. Give me all the chocolate desserts!). I used ricotta cheese, which I much prefer and love how it adds protein too! All that to say, you could probably sub the ricotta with 4-8 ounces of cream cheese too! I’ve used ½-1 cup in this soup, all depending on how creamy and cheesy you want it!

Parmesan cheese

Another classic cheese in many spinach artichoke dip recipes! You can use freshly grated/shredded or the Parmesan cheese from a can! The freshly grated has more flavor, but I’ve used both and they both taste great! If you want a stronger Parmesan flavor and want to up the cheesy factor, feel free to increase the cheese to 1 cup!

White beans

I used Great Northern beans cooked from dried beans (which I had never done before, haha) for this soup the first time I made it! I actually had no canned white beans on hand, only black beans, kidney beans, and chickpeas which wasn’t really what I wanted to use in this soup. But I did have a bag of dried beans collecting dust in my pantry, so I decided to use that! I used 3 cups of cooked beans, or you can use 2 cans to make it easier (that’s what I’d normally do, but was using what I had on hand with minimal trips to the grocery store while I was developing this recipe!). Another bean option is to use white cannellini beans.

Salt and pepper

Seemingly insignificant, but oh-so important in this recipe!! You definitely need the salt and pepper to bring out all the flavors and allow the taste to come together!