Leftover Chicken Soup (2024)

This warming and soothing leftover chicken soup is a great way to use up your leftover roast chicken for a hearty, healthy meal. It is also quick and easy to make, making it a real winner.

We eat a lot of roast chicken in our house and so I am often looking for ways to use up leftover roasted chicken.

We often make a leftover chicken curry, leftover chicken chilli, and leftover chicken pasta bake. But this is another of my favourite ways - leftover roast chicken soup.

It's really quick and easy to make and is so warming and comforting.

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Ingredients

Full ingredients with recipe instructions can be found in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

This easy chicken soup uses the following ingredients. Note that these ingredients are very flexible, so feel free to use up any vegetables from your fridge, use herbs from your garden and/or add in some pasta, cannellini beans or rice to the soup.

• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Onion
• Carrots
• Cellery
• Herbs - I use thyme and parsley
• Chicken stock - I like to either use a pre-prepared chicken bone broth or make up a homemade chicken stock first with the chicken carcass (see below). You can of course use a shop-bought stock but remember: the better the stock, the better the flavour your soup will be.
• Leftover Roast Chicken - remove the leftover meat from the bones, remove any skin and chop the meat into small pieces.

Making chicken soup from a carcass

I am a big believer in using the chicken carcass to make a homemade broth for soup (or any other dishes that call for stock). Not only is it delicious, it is cost effective and good for you.

You can read my full article about making a chicken bone broth here.

If you want to use the chicken bones for soup, simply toss the carcass in a large saucepan with an onion, carrot, a few fresh herbs, bay leaf and a sprinkling of black pepper.

This is all flexible and you can use whatever vegetables you have, but do read the article highlighted above first.

Fill the pan with water, bring to the boil and then let it simmer for at least an hour (longer if you can). Then strain it and it is ready to use in your soup.

Instructions

Step 1: Saute the vegetables and herbs in the oil over a medium heat until soft.

See Also

Easy Chicken Soup From Roast Chicken LeftoversLeftover Roast Chicken Noodle SoupEasy and Comforting Leftover Rotisserie Chicken Noodle SoupMelissa Hemsley's Rescue Noodle Soup with Leftover Chicken

Step 2: Add the stock, bring to the boil and allow it to simmer for 15 minutes.

Step 3: Stir through the leftover chicken.

Step 4: Remove ⅔ of the soup and transfer to a large bowl. Use a stick blender to blend this portion of the soup. (You can also use a normal blender to do this if you don't have a stick blender).

Step 5: Return the blended soup to the pan. Heat through for 5-10 minutes until piping hot.

Note - you can choose to blend all the soup, or none of the soup, based on your preference. I prefer the depth of flavour that blending some of the soup gives, but like to retain the varied texture of the non-blended portion too. Personal preference!

FAQs and Top Tips

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