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Chicken Tortellini Soup is a delicious way to feed a hungry crowd in no time at all!
Every year, from October to February – we spend many of our Saturdays cheering on our youngest daughter at her weekend swim meets.
When it’s a home meet, Jack and I help run the concessions table, where we sell crockpots full of delicious food donated by swim team parents – and the proceeds go toward funding some of the team activities, as well as their end-of-year banquet.
More often than not, Jack will make a soup as our donation to the cause – and this Chicken Tortellini Soup was our latest contribution to the swim team concessions menu.
How do you make Chicken Tortellini Soup?
This Chicken Tortellini Soup can be as gourmet or as simple as your schedule allows. With an already- cooked rotisserie chicken and store-bought chicken stock, this delicious soup can be ready to serve in just thirty minutes! Or, you can go more homemade, and cook your own chicken stock following this recipe. Then add the cooked chicken from making the stock to the finished the soup.
Either way, this Chicken Tortellini Soup is a crowd favorite – and both the swimmers and spectators all loved it!
It’s a classic chicken soup with tender pieces of chicken and cooked tortellini, plus fresh baby spinach and other vegetable including onions, carrots and celery.
But the surprise flavor ingredient is chopped fresh basil – which gets added to the soup, right along with the fresh spinach. The bright, fresh basil flavor is subtle – but it still transforms this Chicken Tortellini Soup into something really special. (In fact, several swim meet parents who ate some of the soup came back to compliment the chef!)
A few tips and tricks when making and serving this soup
Whether you are making this Chicken Tortellini Soup to serve a crowd, or just cooking up a batch for your own family meals, we have a few tips and tricks to ensure that the tortellini doesn’t get mushy in the soup.
First, cook according to your package instructions, but slightly undercook the tortellini. Drain under cool water, then set it aside – but don’t add it to the hot soup just quite yet.
In the case of our swim meet concessions stand, we kept the finished broth and vegetables hot for serving in a slow cooker – adding in just part of the slightly-under-cooked tortellini at a time. As the tortellini sits in the soup, it finishes cooking but doesn’t get overcooked. (Then as we served the Chicken Tortellini Soup – we added more tortellini to the stock to cook through for the next few servings.)
If you are serving this Chicken Tortellini Soup at home, add tortellini to the soup for a few minutes to finish cooking through just before serving.
And, if you are only planning to eat a portion of the soup – saving the rest for another meal – just add enough tortellini as you plan to eat for that meal.
You may enjoy these other delicious soup recipes:
- Chicken Tortilla Soup
- Asian Chicken Soup
- Wild Mushroom and Black Garlic Soup
- Thai Coconut Chicken Soup
- Alphabet Soup
We love seeing what you made! Tag us on Instagram at @afamilyfeast or hashtag #afamilyfeast so we can see your creations!
Chicken Tortellini Soup
Ingredients
1 pound cheese tortellini (fresh or dried)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup onions, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
Pinch red pepper flakes
2 quarts chicken stock
1 cup fresh basil
2 cups baby spinach
2 cups cooked chicken meat, shredded
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Cook tortellini according to package directions but err on the side of slightly undercooked. Cool under cold water and set aside. They will cook a little more in the finished hot soup later in this recipe.
In a large Dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot over medium high heat, add olive oil, onions, celery, carrots and red pepper flakes and saute for four minutes.
Add stock and bring to a boil then simmer until vegetables are tender, about five more minutes.
Stack and roll the basil leaves into a cylinder then slice across from one end to the other leaving small pieces of basil. This is called chiffonade.
Add the basil, spinach, shredded cooked chicken, Parmesan and the cooked tortellini and heat to serving temperature.
Taste and season as needed, then serve.
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Cheese sticks together, how do you keep it separate?
Hi Patrick – we used a very fine grater for the cheese. The sticking isn’t too bad. Hope that helps!
One of my family’s favorite meal..it’s a perfect and filling dinner
Thanks Donna!
Absolutely delicious! So simple to make
I add white beans and parsley.
Great suggestion Jan!
I cannot eat my favorite vegetable spinach due to kidney stones what could i substitute for that
Hi Adrianne – You can simply leave it out, or swap in another green (kale, collard, etc) that you can eat. Those will likely take more time to cook than the spinach so you’ll want to add it to the stock to cook with the other vegetables.