Lemon Chicken Soup
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Lemon Chicken Soup is a delicious dinner that’s easy to make in under an hour. Lemony and secretly healthy, you’ll love this recipe!
This post was originally shared in 2018 but has since been updated.
This Lemon Chicken Soup recipe is one of my favorite meals. Packed with veggies and hearty portions of chicken, it’s super filling and loaded with light lemony flavor.
This Greek Chicken Soup is delicious with rice, orzo, pasta, or quinoa! It’s not a traditional avgolemono soup (this is made without eggs), but it’s just as delicious!
Easy to make in your crockpot, instant pot or on the stove!
Liz’s Tips for the Best Lemon Chicken Soup
- Plan to undercook your pasta. I like to cook the pasta for half the recommended cook time on the package. The pasta will continue to cook in the soup and absorb liquid as it cools!
- Add more veggies. I like to stir in fresh chopped spinach or even cauliflower rice to this for more vegetables!
- Use precooked chicken to save time! You can use precooked chicken or chopped rotisserie chicken in this recipe to save time and use up leftovers. Cut the cook time in half.
Ingredients
A citrus juicer will also be helpful to have!
What cut of chicken is best for soup? Boneless chicken breasts or boneless chicken thighs are the best cut of chicken for soup. Chicken breasts are lower in fat and higher in protein while chicken thighs are higher in fat.
Substitutions
Olive Oil: You can substitute olive oil with avocado oil or melted butter.
Chicken: You can use chicken tenders or boneless chicken thighs if you prefer. I love this recipe with chicken thighs because the fat from the thighs makes the soup a little richer! You can also use pre cooked/shredded chicken or rotisserie chicken! We have also cooked our Crockpot Whole Chicken, pulled all the meat off of the bones and used that for soup too (save the scraps and make Crockpot Bone Broth!)
Cooked Leftover Chicken: You can use this instant pot shredded chicken, slow cooker shredded chicken, or chicken from a rotisserie chicken or roasted chicken. Cut the cook time in half if you’re not using raw chicken. You could also try this Rotisserie Chicken Soup!
Herbs: You can use most herbs interchangeably here. If you don’t have thyme or parsley, use dried rosemary or dried basil. Any of them will be delicious! You can also use dried or fresh herbs. The recipe calls for dried herbs, but if you’d like to use fresh herbs double the amount. Fresh dill is an amazing addition to this recipe!
Orzo Pasta: If you don’t have orzo, any shorter grain pasta will work. We have made this with pastina, alphabets and ditalini. Gluten free pasta will work just fine. Quinoa, rice, or cous cous will also be delicious! We also have a Slow Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup and Chicken Tortellini Soup recipe if you’re looking for other chicken pasta soups.
Zoodles: If you’re looking for a low carb noodle option I like adding zucchini noodles to this soup.
Cauliflower Rice: Cauliflower rice is a great low carb addition to this soup instead of pasta or in addition to pasta!
Spinach: You can add a couple of cups of chopped baby spinach when the soup is finished cooking. It’s a delicious addition!
Broth: Any broth will work in this. You can use bone broth, chicken stock, vegetable stock, etc.
Vegetarian: You could substitute beans for chicken in this recipe and it would be delicious. You’d also need to sub for vegetarian broth.
Creamy Chicken Soup: I have not tried making this chicken soup creamy. I worry that adding milk with lemon will make it curdle. Try at your own risk.
Parmesan Cheese: Add a parmesan cheese rind with the soup while it’s cooking – it adds so much flavor! Remove it at the end when it’s done cooking. You can also top with parmesan or feta.
Extra Veggies: I like to add cauliflower rice, fresh or frozen spinach, frozen green beans or extra carrots to this recipe. You can also try this Chicken Vegetable Soup!
How To Make Greek Lemon Chicken Soup
- Sauté onions, celery, and garlic until translucent.
- Add in carrots, spices, chicken, and chicken broth. Cover the pot and bring to a boil.
- Discard bay leaves. Remove the chicken, and shred the chicken.
- Add shredded chicken back to the soup with cooked pasta. Add lemon juice and stir together.
Can I make this easy chicken soup in the crockpot instead? Yes! You can easily make this soup in the crockpot. Sauté your veggies and add to the crockpot base.
Place whole chicken breasts on top of vegetables in crockpot. Cover with chicken broth and add spices. Place the lid on the crockpot and cook on low for 8 hours. See below for full instructions.
How To Serve This Recipe
This recipe is great with a freshly baked bread, or a side salad. We love this Peach Salad with Goat Cheese, Kale Salad, or our Strawberry Arugula Salad.
Storage
Storing: This soup keeps for up to 4 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Freezing this soup: This soup freezes very well and will last for months in the freezer! We like these containers for freezing.
Reheating: You can reheat this soup in the microwave or on the stovetop. If the soup is frozen, you can defrost the night before in the refrigerator. You can also heat in the microwave or on the stove directly from frozen.
More Healthy Soup Recipes:
If you love healthy soup recipes, make sure to grab our free Healthy Soup Ebook here. Here are some of our other favorite soup recipes:
Lemon Chicken Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cups diced carrots
- 1 cup finely chopped onion
- ½ cup finely chopped celery
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic about 3 cloves
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
- ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 6 cups low sodium chicken broth
- 1 cup dry orzo pasta
- ½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
Instructions
Stovetop Instructions
- In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Sauté the carrots, onion, celery, and garlic for 5 minutes.
- Once the vegetables have cooked, add the black pepper, parsley, thyme, salt, bay leaves, chicken breasts, and chicken broth to the pot. Stir together.
- Cover the pot and bring to a boil. It should take about 10 minutes to come to a boil.
- Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Once the soup has cooked for 15 minutes, turn the heat back to medium-high.
- Remove the chicken breasts and set aside.
- Remove the bay leaves.
- Add the orzo to the pot and stir together. Cook for half the recommended cook time on the package.
- While the orzo cooks, use 2 forks to shred the chicken breasts.
- Once the orzo has cooked for half the recommended cook time, remove the soup from the heat. The pasta will continue to cook as the soup cools.
- Add the chicken and lemon juice to the pot. Stir to combine.
- Tip: If you prefer a firmer pasta, you can cook your pasta in a separate pot and add directly to your bowl when you’re ready to eat.
Crockpot Instructions:
- In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Sauté the carrots, onion, celery, and garlic for 5 minutes.
- Add the sautéd veggies to the crockpot. Add the black pepper, parsley, thyme, salt, bay leaves, chicken breasts, and chicken broth to the pot. Stir together.
- Place the lid on the crockpot and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4-6 hours.
- While the soup cooks, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook your pasta per the directions.
- Remove the chicken breasts and set aside. Use 2 forks to shred the chicken breasts.
- Remove the bay leaves.
- Add shredded chicken, lemon juice and cooked pasta to the pot. Stir to combine and enjoy!
- Tip: If you prefer a firmer pasta, you can cook your pasta in a separate pot and add directly to your bowl when you’re ready to eat.
Instant Pot Instructions:
- Set instant pot to Sauté mode for 5 minutes.
- Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Sauté the carrots, onion, celery, and garlic for 5 minutes.
- Once the vegetables have cooked, add the black pepper, parsley, thyme, salt, bay leaves, chicken breasts, and chicken broth to the pot. Stir together.
- Cover instant pot and set to sealing, ‘Soup’ OR Pressure Cook for 12 minutes.
- Allow the soup to come to pressure and cook. It should take about 10 minutes to come to pressure, but can take longer if your broth is cold.
- While the soup cooks, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook your pasta per the directions.
- Once the soup has cooked, quick release the pressure.
- Remove the chicken breasts and set aside. Use 2 forks to shred the chicken breasts.
- Remove the bay leaves.
- Add shredded chicken, lemon juice and cooked pasta to the pot. Stir to combine and enjoy!
- Tip: If you prefer a firmer pasta, you can cook your pasta in a separate pot and add directly to your bowl when you’re ready to eat.
This sounds amazing! I would like to freeze some in small portions. Would it be best to leave the lemon juice out? Then add when reheating.
I would probably leave it off and just add it as you serve!
I had to Google what an “Instant Pot” is. That’s how much I cook. I plan to try this Lemon Chicken Soup & the Italian Wedding Soup, but not in an IP!
Hope you love it! It’s delicious on the stove too – I made it last week 🙂
I just made this soup for my family who are all sick and aside from being incredibly delicious, I think it also has magical healing powers or something! This will probably go into our regular rotation to make all the time too! As a side note, we made it with a brown and wild rice mix instead of pasta and it was perfect!
Delicious! And so easy! The whole family loved it.
I’ve looked for a long time for a good basic Greek lemon orzo soup. The best recipe I’ve found!
Loved this soup. Even my picky teenagers like it which is fabulous ! I made it in my crockpot and it turned out so perfect.
Truly delicious! My family loved it. I also stirred in some baby spinach leaves at the end which added color, nutrition and complimented the flavor. Thank you!
So good! I will be definitely be making this recipe again!
What a great recipe.
Unfortunately the liquid to vegetable/ chicken ratio needs to be increased.
I ended up with tons of extra and had to buy another batch of broth to make it in😭
Otherwise a great recipe.
The addition of the lemon really pulls this dish together completely😁
Thanks, Ady! I’ve made this soup hundreds of times and have never experienced it not having enough broth. No one has ever mentioned this to me either after trying. But If you like a brothier soup, adding more to the pot shouldn’t be a problem.
Huge hit in our house! Just got over tummy bug and this hit the spot, easing back to “real” food again. Another winner!
This is my favorite chicken soup! I always make a double or triple batch to freeze in individual portions so that I always have some on hand. I love it with orzo or even leftover rice. Thanks so much for this recipe!
This soup is spectacular!!! The lemon brightens it up so much and adding the parmesan rind hack takes this over the top and adds such richness!!
Such a simple recipe to put together. The whole family loved it. I made pasta and rice on the side for choices of a base. Will be adding this to the rotation.
So glad you liked it!
This was the perfect comfort food for below freezing temps. The lemon juice added a nice zest to the soup ! This was easy to follow . I appreciate there being options on how we can cook it . Today I was pressed for time so the instant pot did the job. Clean ingredient and easy to follow !
So glad you liked it, Lisette!
I made the soup in the crockpot and was super yummy! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Catie!! I appreciate it!
So delicious! I added green beans since I saw you do it in your stories this week and is amazing! Served it with orzo. Definitely will make again this winter.
Thanks, Lana! Glad you liked it! Love the extra veggies. Try chopped spinach next time 🙂
This was my first time making soup in the Instant Pot and it did not disappoint !
Thanks, Laura!! I appreciate it!
Am I losing my mind or did this recipe used to include 2 quarts of chicken broth (rather than 1.5) and a quarter teaspoon of red chili flakes? Thank you!
We recently updated this recipe and tweaked it slightly. If you’d like to make it the original way, feel free!
I made this recipe for the 3rd time last evening , using IP directions. This time I added frozen boneless breasts. And it worked!!!!
After releasing pressure, I open & set the IP to Saute(high) to add egg noodles( 5-6 minutes ) I had the best soup ever!!😊P.S. Just as tasty without lemon juice
So happy you liked it! Thank you so much!
My friend is stuck at home with a little girl who is sick so I just made them a big batch of this. It’s so good!!
So happy you liked it! What a great friend!
I’m trying to broaden my skills and pallet and get away from the basics. Just made this soup – It is wonderful. I used some parsnips along with the carrots and used chickpea pasta and it is delicious. Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks, Douglas! That sounds great with the parsnips
This is my all time favorite…. in crock pot as i write this… I always add spinach to this recipe and today added some left over fresh stir fry veg. and using fresh rosemary and tyme~ cooking on low for 8 hrs… we shall see if its as good or better than usual~
Hope you loved it! Thanks Janie!
Follow this recipe exactly and turned out great! Used the soup setting which emcee up being 30 min of actual cooking time once it reached pressure. The chicken breast I used had not thawed completely but worked out well. I will add some cauliflower rice when I serve, Yummy!
Thanks!
So glad you liked it! Thank you!
I would like to mention that I bought the 4 week meal plan, and this was included in it. However, it still says to add the lemon juice before cooking, along with adding the lemon halves. Unfortunately I added the lemon juice before cooking, but luckily came back to this before adding the lemon halves. Maybe one or the other needs an update.
Hi Jenna- In neither recipe does it call to add the lemon halves to the soup. Both the recipes in the guide and on our website call for ‘lemon juice’. Adding lemon halves would result in a bitter soup because of the lemon rind. You can add the juice before or after cooking- either way will work. We found that people making this recipe in the instant pot got a slightly bitter taste when adding the lemon juice to the soup before cooking which is why we adjusted it. Our 4 Weeks of Clean Eating Guide doesn’t have instant pot instructions, which is why it wasn’t changed.
I crave this soup!! Love the freshness. And ease of substituting different ingredients to change it up and use what you have in your refrigerator. I use my instant pot which makes the completed product piping hot and comforting on a cold snowy day. I give it a definite 10!!!!
So glad you like it, Cheryl! It’s one of our favorites too!