Rotisserie chicken soup is a great recipe for healthy dinners. This is one of the easiest chicken soup recipes out there. I’ll show you how you can get this delicious weeknight dinner recipe on the table quickly.
This is my favorite soup to make during the “winter” (in quotes because the winter season is debatable in Arizona). Making this rotisserie chicken soup with salsa is quick and easy, bonus points because the whole family loves it too!
You can make this recipe three ways: in the Instant Pot, in your Crockpot, or with the tried and true stovetop method. You know I love finding ways to make recipes easier and less intensive.
Break out the Crockpot or the Instant Pot to take the watching and stirring out of this tasty chicken noodle soup (sans noodles) recipe! Perfect for meal prep too, you can make a batch of this tasty soup and reheat it all week long. Make sure to add your toppings fresh each time or they’ll get soggy!
A note about rotisserie chicken
We stoped buying store bought rotisserie chickens a while ago because of the extra ingredients added. We learned how easy it is to make our own rotisserie-style chicken, and we’ve been making them for this recipe (and others) ever since.
I have a five different rotisserie chicken recipes, cooked five ways: Crockpot, Instant Pot, Grill, Ninja Foodi, and Oven. Click here to read about how to cook a rotisserie chicken five ways (with recipes!)
How to Make Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken Tortilla Soup with Salsa:
1) Pull the meat from the rotisserie chicken and chop it into bite sized pieces.
2) Add the meat, bones, and skin to the Instant Pot. I grouped the bones and skin on one side of the Instant Pot so that they were easier to remove later. Yes, the bones are important–it adds a depth of flavor that just isn’t there with regular chicken meat. You’ll remove the bones and skin later :)
3) Pour the rest of the ingredients to the Instant Pot. Close the lid and turn the pressure valve to sealing. Remember, dry rice for Instant Pot cooking!
4) Cook on high pressure using the soup setting for 25 minutes. When the Instant Pot is done cooking let the pressure release naturally or release the pressure by turning the valve a little then closing it again. This will release a little pressure at a time and prevent the soup from shooting out of the valve.
5) Remove the bone and skin from the soup the serve. Garnish with chopped avocado, cilantro, and/or tortilla strips and cheese.
Tips for removing bones and skin:
- Push them to the same side of the pot and remove them before stirring
- Put them in a mesh cooking bag for easy removal
- If you’re concerned about the fat, skip adding the skin and just do the bones
How to Make Slow Cooker Rotisserie Chicken Tortilla Soup with Salsa:
- Pull the meat from the rotisserie chicken and chop it into bite sized pieces.
- Add chicken meat, bones, and skin to the slow cooker. I grouped the bones and skin on one size of the slow cooker so that they were easier to remove later.
- Pour the rest of the ingredients to the slow cooker.
- Place the lid on the slow cooker. Cook the soup on high heat for 2-3 hours or low heat for 4-6 hours.
- When it’s time to eat remove the bone and skin from the soup the serve. Garnish with chopped avocado, cilantro, and/or tortilla strips and cheese. You can add salt and pepper at the end to taste!
How to Make Chicken Soup with Salsa on the Stovetop:
You can skip steps 3 & 4 if you are using the crockpot chicken for meal prep recipe that I linked above! In all reality you could skip right to adding the rice if you make the crockpot chicken. Just make sure to add your salsa into the mix for the simmering process!
- Pour the chicken broth and salsa into a large pot or stock pot on low heat.
- Cook the carrots and zucchini in 1 T olive oil for 5-10 minutes
- Pull the chicken off the bone. I put it all on a cutting board and then cut it into smaller pieces before putting it into the pot. A huge step that I used to skip (because it’s icky) is putting the skin, drumsticks, and wings into the pot. Don’t skip that step. It adds a lot of moisture and taste, and you’re going to take out all the yucky stuff before you eat the soup. Trust me on this one.
- Go ahead. Close your eyes and put the drumsticks and wings in.
- Add the pepper, and the veggies when they’re done.
- Add the rice.
- Let it simmer (slow boil) after you bring to a boil on the stove for an hour. Or two. Or three.
- When it’s time to eat, use tongs to pull out the skin and bones. I fill the bowl with everything but broth at first and add cheese on top. After the cheese has a few seconds to melt, I add the broth on top
- Garnish with chopped avocado, flour tortilla strips, or both!
Healthy Diet Information:
21 Day Fix containers:
Serves: 4
Serving Size: 1.5 cups filling, 1 cup broth
Entire recipe: whole chicken = 6 red containers, 4 1/2 green containers, 1 yellow container
1 Serving with 3/4 cup chicken: 1 1/2 Red container, 1 Green container, 1/4 Yellow container
Weight Watchers:
3 Blue Plan Point | 5 Green Plan Points | 0 Purple Plan Points
2022/2023 Points: 3 Points
Trim Healthy Mama
This is a Crossover recipe for THM and you’ll need eliminate the carrots since they’re not on plan! I made this recipe before I knew about those guidelines but you won’t miss them. The recipe is still delicious without the carrots!
Can I add noodles to this chicken soup recipe?
You can add noodles to this recipe if you’d like to create a homemade chicken noodle soup. I’d cooke them separately if you are using egg noodles and add them at the end. You could also make this into a chicken and rice soup by adding some cooked rice.
Add the noodles and/or rice into the mix during the last 30 minutes of cooking. They’ll go great with roasted chicken and fresh herbs. Your taste buds won’t know what hit them!
Remember that noodles and rice are not included in the counts for any of the healthy lifestyle programs that I’ve listed above. If you add them, calculate them appropriately. I don’t usually make this with noodles because it doesn’t need them but you can add just about anything you’d like to this recipe, it is very versatile.
Rotisserie Chicken Tortilla Soup
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 chicken rotisserie
- 64 ounces chicken stock low sodium, or if you're fancy and you make your own, 64 oz.
- 2 cups zucchini diced small
- 1 cup carrots diced small
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 cup brown rice (dry for IP, cooked for stovetop or Crockpot)
- 1.5 cups salsa
Instructions
Instant Pot:
- Pull the meat from the rotisserie chicken and chop it into bite sized pieces.
- Add the meat, bones, and skin to the Instant Pot. I grouped the bones and skin on one size of the Instant Pot so that they were easier to remove later.
- Pour the rest of the ingredients to the Instant Pot. Close the lid and turn the pressure valve to sealing. Remember to use dry rice when cooking in the Instant Pot.
- Cook on high pressure using the soup setting for 25 minutes. When the Instant Pot is done cooking let the pressure release naturally or release the pressure by turning the valve a little then closing it again. This will release a little pressure at a time and prevent the soup from shooting out of the valve.
- Remove the bone and skin from the soup the serve. Garnish with chopped avocado, cilantro, and/or tortilla strips and cheese.
Stove Top:
- Pour the chicken stock and salsa into a stock pot on low heat.
- Cook the carrots and zucchini in 1 T olive oil for 5-10 minutes
- Pull the chicken off the bone. I put it all on a cutting board and then cut it into smaller pieces before putting it into the pot. A huge step that I used to skip (because it’s icky) is putting the skin, drumsticks, and wings into the pot. Don’t skip that step. It adds a lot of moisture and taste, and you’re going to take out all the yucky stuff before you eat the soup. Trust me on this one. Go ahead. Close your eyes and put the drumsticks and wings in.
- Add the pepper, and the veggies when they're done.
- Add the rice. Cooked rice is needed here!
- Let it simmer (slow boil) on the stove for an hour. Or two. Or three.
- When it’s time to eat, use tongs to pull out the skin and bones. I fill the bowl with everything but broth at first and add cheese on top. After the cheese has a few seconds to melt, I add the broth on top
- Garnish with chopped avocado, flour tortilla strips, or both!
Slow cooker:
- Pull the meat from the rotisserie chicken and chop it into bite sized pieces.
- Add the meat, bones, and skin to the slow cooker. I grouped the bones and skin on one size of the slow cooker so that they were easier to remove later.
- Pour the rest of the ingredients to the slow cooker. Cooked rice is fine here as well!
- Place the lid on the slow cooker. Cook the soup on high heat for 2-3 hours or low heat for 4-6 hours.
- When it’s time to eat remove the bone and skin from the soup the serve. Garnish with chopped avocado, cilantro, and/or tortilla strips and cheese.
Video
Notes
Serving Size: 1.5 cups filling, 1 cup broth Entire recipe: whole chicken = 6 red containers, 4 1/2 green containers, 1 yellow container 1 Serving with 3/4 cup chicken: 1 1/2 Red container, 1 Green container, 1/4 Yellow container Weight Watchers: 3 Blue Plan Point | 5 Green Plan Points | 0 Purple Plan Points 2022/2023 Points: 3 Points
Nutrition
no garlic or onion?
Could you please tell me what containers you use to portion this recipe? How it relates to the 21 Day Fix?
Thank you!
Hi Jeanne! Yes! Look at #2 here: https://mycrazygoodlife.com/21-day-fix-dinner-recipes/
But what about the brown rice? What number of yellows do you count that as?
Depending on how much brown rice you add, you could could it as 1/4 or 1/2 yellow container.
For 1.5 cup filling & 1 cup broth is it 1.5 R, 4 G and 1/4 Y??? 4 G seems like a lot.
Thank you! We are excited to try this tonight!
OMG good catch–I’m sorry about that! I’ve just changed it–it should be 1G per serving :)
Hello! Does the rice go in cooked and then I simmer it for a couple hours? I just want to make sure I’m clear. I cannot wait to try this tonight!! It is cold here in North Florida.
Hello! I use the Minute Rice and put it in for a few hours, or if I need it faster I use cooked rice. It’s chilly here in Arizona too! I hope this warms you up!
Becca
The recipe says cooked rice. Is it supposed to be uncooked? I can’t imagine only a quarter cup of cooked rice proportioned with the larger quantities of everything else.
You can definitely change the amount to what works best for you!
Great soup! I flipped the order of instructions. I put only the stock in the pot first and the “yucky” chicken bones and skin and let them cook while I finished cutting up the chicken and cooking the veggies. Then I just dumped it through a strainer, poured the stock back in the pot, and finished the recipe.
I am cooking this now. Since it serves 6 I added 3 yellow container portions of cooked rice. That way, when I divide it I have 1/2 yellow container per serving. This worked best since I wasn’t planning on adding cheese or tortilla strips to my soup. I will add avocado as a topping and probably squirt some lemon juice into it (I love lemon in all my broth soups). I like that the salsa kind of takes the place of having to chop onion and garlic. It smells heavenly up in here. Side note. . .when reading this recipe there is a tendency to just take the breast meat. Harvest all the meat. Grocery store rotisserie chickens are small. If you get a Sams Club or Costco roasted chicken, feel free to just use the breast. Those things are HUGE.
Thank you for this great recipe. I really enjoyed it. I substituted the brown rice with hulled barley. I had cooked a couple of chickens in my IP yesterday and planned to use one of them to make this recipe. So glad it turned out well.
I’m so glad you liked it! This is one of our favorites!
Hi, I made this soup in my instant pot tonite and I just wanted to tell you how much I love it!! It has so much flavor. Even my dogs loved it, i let them lick the bowl…my only problem, my rotisserie chicken carcass fell apart during cooking and the bones ended up everywhere. Any tips or suggestions for future? I definitely am making this again!
Yay!! This makes me so happy! They have bags you can buy, mesh or cheesecloth ones, that contain the bones–I’d try that!