Name: Chicken Pot Pie Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 55 min
Ingredients: 1 lb chicken thighs, bone-in and skin-on; 1 small onion, diced; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1 large carrot, sliced; 2 celery sticks, sliced; 1/2 fennel bulb, diced; 2 tbsp butter; 3 tbsp all-purpose flour; 1/2 cup corn; 3 cups chicken stock; 1 bay leaf; a few thyme sprigs; 1 cup peas; 1/4 cup heavy cream; 1/2 lemon, zest and juice; mini croissants, for topping; grated parmesan cheese, for topping; fresh dill, for topping; salt and black pepper

This Chicken Pot Pie Soup combines the comfort and indulgence of a chicken pie and the easiness of a soup. All made on the stovetop, in one pot. It’s perfect for a cold winter night and it might even taste better the next day!

A universal comfort food, soup is an easy way to please any crowd. This hearty, chunky, and creamy chicken pot pie soup follows a basic formula that can be made in about 40 minutes. As with any soup, you can tailor the ingredients to your liking and make it your own.

When it comes to baking, the world is all about rules: get out your scale! Measure all the ingredients! Follow the instructions closely!

The cooking world is less about strict rules and more about freestyling. As long as you understand the basics, you can play around with a recipe and it’s usually easy to make a failed dish delicious.

That’s especially true about soup. Soup is a very forgiving kind of dish. The formula is simple and so is the technique:

1 pound protein, 1 pound vegetables, 1 quart broth, 1 onion, 1 can tomatoes, a starch (potatoes, rice, pasta, beans), and herbs, spices, and/or flavorings for a regular soup.

Sauté the onion until softened, add the remaining ingredients, bring it to a simmer, cook for about 20 minutes, and serve it up.

If you follow this formula (from How To Cook Without a Book) you can create your own soup. The truth is, I rarely follow any formula when making any soup because after you’ve made so many soups in your life, the act of making one becomes rather mundane and quite instinctive. Just like intuitive eating, it comes naturally to you if you just stop to think about each ingredient separately and how they come together to create a soup.

This soup doesn’t quite follow that formula, but the sentiment is the same. The most important thing when cooking is to keep tasting and adjusting as you go. For this chicken pot pie soup, I wanted it to be bright, zesty, have some texture and just the right amount of cream. It turned out so good and it’s great the next day, too. Perhaps even better.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

I do love a chicken pot pie. But it can be rather laborious, especially if you’re the kind of person who insists on making your own pie dough from scratch, which I seem to be. This soup is not quite a chicken pot pie, but it truly gets very close.

It’s so much easier to put together than baking a whole pie and it’s such a satisfying dish on a cold winter night. I first made it because I had malformed mini croissants in the freezer I had made from dough scraps a few weeks before. Because just as much as I insist on making everything from scratch, I also refuse to waste dough, especially croissant dough.

The moment I made them, I knew they would end up as chicken pot pie toppers. But if you don’t have mini croissants in your freezer, don’t worry. There are many things you can try:

You can get store-bought puff pastry and make your own mini croissants. Very easy and practical!

You can buy frozen mini croissants. Trader Joe’s mini croissants are really good.

You can just buy croissants at a cafe or bakery.

Or you can just skip the croissants altogether. Everything will be okay.

Personally, I believe the toppings here are quite important: they add texture and flavor, and extra carbs to fill you up.

Ingredients and Equipment

This is a one-pot stovetop recipe, but you might need to use the oven. If you’re baking your own croissants, you might as well crisp up the chicken thighs skin.

I learned the crispy chicken skin trick from Hailee Catalano and it’s truly an ingenious move. I always use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs when making soup because they add so much flavor, but that also means I usually end up having to discard the skins.

Adding them to the oven to crisp up while your soup simmers away is a simple way to add a wonderful topping to your soup.

You might want to skip it if you’re not already using the oven to bake some croissants, but I’d highly encourage you to try it. I usually won’t turn on the oven just for them, so I turn to my air fryer and it usually does the trick!

This step doesn’t add any extra time to the cooking time but it’s so worth the effort. The crispy skin adds a lovely salty, much needed crunchy bite to this creamy soup.

I also like finishing it up with some grated parmesan cheese for a depth of flavor and lemon zest for brightness.

I don’t like adding too much cream to a soup, so I usually take a more conservative approach when adding them. Regardless, creamy soups need a little bit of acid to brighten them up, so I like to add lemon juice before serving. Topping with freshly grated lemon zest is just another way to make it really bright and well balanced.

The other ingredients in this soup are typical ingredients you’ll find in a chicken pot pie filling: onion, carrots, celery, corn, and peas.

Step-by-Step Instructions

I start by adding the chicken thighs to the pot and let them cook just until golden brown. Then I remove from the pan and saute the onions until softened before adding in the carrots, celery and fennel.

Cooking the vegetables over medium low heat allows them to develop a lot of flavor, so I usually let them cook for a little while. Whereas you’re trying to brown the chicken, you just want to sweat the vegetables, so keep the heat medium low.

Then make a quick roux by pushing all the vegetables to the side of the pan. Add the butter and flour, and cook, stirring, until the flour is absorbed and smooth. That’s what’s going to thicken the soup.

Return the chicken to the pan, add the chicken stock, and the herbs, and simmer until chicken is cooked. Then remove once again the last few minutes of cooking, shred with two forks, and return to the soup.

Don’t forget your toppings and you’re all set.

If you make this Chicken Pot Pie Soup, please let me know in the comments!

Le Creuset Dutch oven

An equally cute, but cheaper one.

Le Creuset salt and pepper mills

Air Fryer

Microplane Grater

Acacia wood cutting board

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click on one of the product links above and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only ever recommend products or services I genuinely love or use personally. Thank you so much for supporting From A Small Kitchen!