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Recipes / Weeknight · Soups · Chicken

Chicken Orzo Soup

A weeknight soup built on homemade stock and a rotisserie chicken — a dozen cloves of garlic, lots of mushrooms, and orzo in the last ten minutes.

Prep
20 min
Cook
About 40 min
Serves
8 bowls
Pot
7-qt Dutch oven
Jump to the recipe
Two white bowls of chicken orzo soup with mushrooms, carrots and celery in a golden broth

This is the soup we make when we want something comforting on a weeknight. It’s mostly a way to use the good stuff: homemade stock and a rotisserie chicken.

Two things make it. Let the vegetables and mushrooms sweat out their moisture before any seasoning goes in, so they brown and concentrate instead of steaming. And don’t be shy with the garlic — a dozen cloves is about right.

A red Dutch oven full of chicken orzo soup with sliced mushrooms floating in the broth
The whole pot. It feeds a crowd, or a week of lunches.

Make it

Makes 8 bowls

1x is about 5 quarts. Fits a 7-quart Dutch oven.

Ingredients

The base

Seasoning

The soup

  1. In a big Dutch oven over medium heat, warm a drizzle of olive oil with 2–3 pats of butter. Add the onion and cook until soft.
  2. Add the garlic, celery, carrots and mushrooms. Let them sweat until the mushrooms have given up their moisture and everything is soft, before any seasoning goes in.
  3. Stir in the Italian seasoning, black pepper, Aleppo pepper and a little salt.
  4. Add the chopped chicken, then pour in enough stock to cover everything well, about 12 cups.
  5. Simmer over medium-high for 20–30 minutes.
  6. Stir in the orzo for the last 10 minutes and cook until tender. Taste and adjust the salt.

Good to know

  • Make the stock first if you can: Dark, Rich Chicken Stock.
  • Rotisserie chicken is the weeknight shortcut. It's already cooked, so it only needs to heat through.
  • A vegetable chopper (affiliate link) makes the onion, celery and carrots fast. Cut them to fit the 2½-inch grid, push the lid down, done. It works for garlic in a pinch, though we'd rather mince it or use a garlic press (affiliate link).
  • The orzo keeps soaking up broth. Thin leftovers with a splash of stock when you reheat.