Creamy Crack Chicken Soup

This creamy, crispy chicken soup recipe is bursting with an incredible cheese flavour! The perfect comfort food for winter prepared with bacon, chicken, cheese, spinach and ranch seasonings.Low carb and Keto also approved!

Looking for more crack chicken recipes? Try this baked chicken breast or this instant potted chicken recipe!

serving of crack chicken soup in a bowl

CRACK CHICKEN SOUP 

Warm up in a large bowl of this creamy, cracked chicken soup! Judging by the popularity of my baked chicken breasts AND instant potted chicken, I think you're definitely going to LOVE the cracked chicken in the form of soup.

SO good, so comforting and really easy to prepare, this soup is by far my favorite homemade chicken soup. Ready in less than 30 minutes, you'll enjoy every spoonful. Cracked chicken soup is a great meal for cold winter nights, but we enjoy it all year round, whatever the season.


Just grab a cooked roast chicken and let's go! OR, you can use leftover cooked chicken breasts.
cooking chicken soup in a saucepan

HOW TO MAKE CRACK CHICKEN SOUP

We start by cooking bacon in a Dutch oven or pot; cook the bacon to a crisp, then remove the bacon from the pan, but keep the bacon fat.

Melt the butter in the same saucepan with the bacon fat and stir in the onion and garlic; cook until softened.
Stir in chicken broth and add homemade ranch seasoning mixture. You can use store-bought ranch mixes packages - you'll need a tablespoon but these contain a lot of sodium. I suggest going with my mixture of dried dill, dried chives, onion powder and garlic powder. Bring all this to a boil; reduce heat and keep to a steady boil for 5 minutes.

Then shred cooked chicken - use leftover chicken or roast chicken - and stir it into the pan. Continue cooking for 5 minutes.

Then add a block of softened cream cheese to the pan. If the cream cheese is not soft enough,
place the cream cheese block on a plate and microwave for 30 seconds.
Whisk the cream cheese in the pot until completely melted and combined.
Stir in cheddar and continue whisking until melted and combined.
Add baby spinach and heavy cream. Taste the seasonings and adjust accordingly.
Garnish with sliced shallots and prepared bacon; Serve. Tasty and creamy soup, it will make you drool while simmering in this pot.

VARIATIONS OF CRACK CHICKEN SOUP 

Instead of spinach, you can add kale or zucchini noodles.For those who don't follow a low-carb/keto diet, add pasta noodles to boiling chicken broth and cook for 8 minutes.  Then continue to add the rest of the ingredients according to the recipe instructions.
If you don't have leftover cooked chicken to use, I suggest you bake my chicken breasts. Use these shredding claws to shred afterwards.

CAN YOU FREEZE CRACK CHICKEN SOUP? 

Yes! I say make a double batch and freeze it. Simply pour the soup into freezer bags and store it in the freezer for up to 3 months.
When ready to serve, take out of the freezer the day before and let thaw in the refrigerator overnight.
Reheat over medium heat, stirring frequently. Don't boil it.

HOW TO KEEP LEFTOVER CHICKEN SOUP 

Store leftover soup in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
Reheat over medium heat, stirring frequently. break chicken soup in a bowl topped with bacon and green onions

WHY IS IT CALLED "CRACK CHICKEN" ?!?

 I get this question about ALL my crack chicken recipes; the basic explanation on the Internet is that the flavors of the dry seasoning mixture for ranch paired with the creamy character of cream cheese and cheddar make this chicken 100% addictive, just like crack.