No bland chickpea soup in my world! Exploding with flavour, this tastes like your favourite Chicken Shawarma – except it’s in soup form with lamb and chickpeas. Filling, nutritious and quick to make!
Chickpea soup with flavour explosion!
I had every intention of making a wholesome, chickpea and vegetable soup.
I really, really tried to get excited about it.
It is possible to make a great meat-free chickpea soup (I promise I will share mine one day!). But, but, but…. I wanted kapow flavours. Actually, I was really tempted to do the long haul drive for a good laksa fix. I felt like I deserved it. (But then, I always feel I deserve it….)
So I compromised. Chickpeas. Veggie loaded – there’s a whole bunch of spinach in this, plus carrots plus onion (yes that counts towards your daily veggie intake, I checked!). Lamb for protein, cooked with my Chicken Shawarma spice mix – wait until you smell this part!!!! It’s SO GOOD!
Shawarma Spice Mix
This is the same shawarma spice mix I use for Chicken Shawarma, a long standing reader favourite. The combination of spices in this is intoxicating!
Oh boy. If you like kapow flavours, or if you are dubious about chickpea soups having been scarred by bland ones in the past, this Lamb Shawarma Chickpea Soup is for you!! It’s really fragrant, the soup itself is quite intense from both the spices and also the lamb. It’s hearty, almost stew-like. Actually, I didn’t know whether to call this a stew or soup.
Because the soup flavouring is from the Shawarma Spice Mix, there’s no need to simmer this for ages. Just long enough for the carrot to become tender. Oh, also, I use canned chickpeas here. Speedy, unplanned meal. 🙂
But if you do have the foresight to plan and want to take it over the top, add a side of homemade flatbreads (simple, no yeast!) or make this mind blowingly easy crusty Artisan bread.
Update: I recently created a similar but different variation of this soup in the form of Beef & Lentil Soup. This was has more Moroccan-inspired flavours. Give it a try too!
– Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Chickpea Lamb Shawarma Soup
Ingredients
Spices:
- 2 tsp EACH cumin powder, coriander, paprika
- 1 tsp cardamon powder (can omit if you don’t have)
- ¼ tsp cinnamon powder
- ½ tsp cayenne pepper (adjust to taste)
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp salt
Soup:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 onion , finely chopped
- 500 g / 1 lb lamb mince (ground lamb, or beef) (Note 1)
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 carrots , peeled and chopped (about size of chickpeas)
- 600 g / 21 oz canned chickpeas , drained and rinsed (1.5 standard cans, Note 2)
- 400 g / 14 oz can crushed tomato
- 3 cups / 750 ml chicken broth / stock
- 1 bunch spinach , roughly chopped (about 4 packed cups) (wilts a lot)
Garnishes (highly recommended):
- Plain yoghurt (or sour cream)
- Chopped fresh coriander / cilantro
Instructions
- Heat oil in a large pot over high heat. Add garlic and onion, cook for 1 minute until starting to turn translucent.
- Add lamb and cook, breaking it up as you go. When it has mostly turned from pink to light brown, add spices.
- Cook for 1 minute, then add tomato paste and cook for another 1 minute. (It smells amazing!)
- Add carrots, chickpeas, tomato and broth. Stir and bring to simmer.
- Cover with lid, lower heat so it is bubbling energetically but not crazy rapidly. Cook for 10 minutes until carrot is tender but not super soft – I like it to have a bit of bite still, if you want super soft, keep cooking.
- Stir through spinach. Once wilted, adjust salt, pepper and spiciness (cayenne) to taste, and water if you want more liquid.
- Ladle into bowls, add a dollop of yoghurt and a generous sprinkling of coriander. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
More hearty soups
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Chicken Noodle Soup from scratch – or a quick version!
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Browse all Soups
Life of Dozer
Spent my afternoon tea break trying to teach him to hold a flower in his mouth, just because I think it would be so cute! But once he realised it wasn’t edible, he was completely uninterested. I give up.
Nagi – this is good. Almost a stew rather than a soup – it has much of the flavour of a tagine with very little of the effort.
Great job as usual
Hi Nagi, I have a “Shwarma Seasoning” spice blend. Can I replace the individual spices listed in recipe and replace them with the equivalent total of tablespoons/teaspoons of the quantity of spices you listed? (Minus the salt and pepper, which I would add separately.) Thanks! LOVE your recipes. Love Dozer.
This was delicious. Enjoyed by the whole family.
I am so in love with this soup. There was a pound of ground lamb in the freezer and a can of chickpeas in the pantry. Specifically googled those two ingredients for a recipe when I found your website. It was a hot summer day in Michigan but any day is a soup day!! Definitely will make this again. The family loved it. Can’t wait to explore more of your recipes and I am now following you on instagram. ❤️
Melbourne is serving rainy wintery weather so we served this up tonight and it is hitting all the right spots! So warming and tasty, and totally has me a chickpea convert!
This was delicious on a cold rainy day. I didn’t have lamb mince, so diced some lamb legs steaks I had in the freezer into chunks. Still worked great.
Delicious! All our family love dish – lovely and tasty with everything you need in one dish. Even better served with the flatbreads which are so quick to make.
Thanks again for yet another lovely recipe Nagi!
I love this soup and I sent the recipe my friends! I have made it with ground lamb, lamb stew meat, beef stew meat, venison, and moose. It is always delicious and freezes so well. I always make it in the Instant Pot to make it extra easy.
I made this vegan and heated up plant-based shawarma to put on top right before serving. Delicious!
NAGI ~ This was truly awesome! Thank you
Absolutely amazing! So warming, such rich layers of flavour. I am a cinnamon hater but I put my trust in you Nagi and it really did add a great touch.
I have made this soup multiple times with lamb or beef and every time it is so delicious.
I made this for dinner tonight and instead of using yogurt we used Labne. Labne is a staple in our house, my husband’s family is Lebanese and Labne goes so well with lamb and these spices. Here in the states find it in whole foods type stores. This soup is so delicious!!!
I saw this on your instagram earlier this week and thought this would be perfect for today (a rainy Sunday). It was! Very comforting dish for a chilly, grey, rainy day.
Made this tonight and it was a hit! I treated it as a stew and served it over rice. So delicious. My kids asked me to make it again already. Another RecipeTin success! Thanks, Nagi!
This recipe is amazing…such great flavor! I make this probably once a month. Everyone loves it.
This soup is on high rotation at our house. I make a double batch for freezing. It’s perfect as is, but we occasionally swap the proteins. Most recently used turkey mince and replaced the chickpeas with canned cannellini beans. Yum!
I’ve made this twice now. First a double batch for “Souper Tuesday” at work and once just for myself. It’s amazing!! Only changes I made were to use frozen chopped spinach as it cost less than 1/5th of the cost of fresh and rice make a single batch I used a whole litre of stock and only one can of chickpeas but I also probably used a little extra carrot and spinach. I didn’t want half empty or not quite finished bottles or cans of stuff in the fridge. Delicious!
I found the chickpeas to be dry for some reason so I made it the second time with lentils and OMGosh is it good. Try half a pound of dry lentils. The flavors are amazing but the texture is fabulous!
Where are you Nagi? I miss you and Dozer, hope you are both well. I did make this soup a couple of days ago and oh man was this not only packed with flavour but so filling too, my partner had 3 bowls of it and he took some in a flask to work the morning after, the poor thing was sweating his a**e off because it was nearly 30 degrees here in Manchester, but who cares when the food tastes this nice. Take care Nagi. X