Buffalo Chicken Soup

This buffalo chicken soup is a buffalo lover’s dream! It’s full of bold flavors and definitely on the spicy side, but you can adjust the amount of buffalo sauce if you have a low spice tolerance. I think ranch dressing and buffalo sauce go hand-in-hand, so I added some ranch seasoning to this soup. Cream cheese makes it thick and creamy, and leftover rotisserie chicken makes it quick and easy to throw together. If you have a buffalo chicken obsession and love buffalo wings or buffalo chicken dip, you’ll love this recipe for buffalo chicken soup!

For more delicious buffalo chicken flavor, make sure to try my Buffalo Chicken Bites and Buffalo Chicken Pasta! And if you’re wondering what to serve with buffalo chicken soup, I always love having some kind of bread option, like homemade rolls or cornbread. If you want something to curb the spice, cooling Cucumber Yogurt Salad or sweet and creamy Grape Salad and Apple Snickers Salad is just the ticket!

Why This Recipe Works

• Creamy buffalo chicken soup. I love a good creamy soup. A roux, along with the addition of cream cheese, makes for a buffalo chicken soup recipe that has a delightfully rich and creamy texture.
• Incredible flavor. In my mind, ranch dressing and buffalo sauce are a match made in heaven! A bit of dry ranch seasoning in the roux adds a wonderful savory flavor to the soup.
• Easy weeknight dinner. Soup season, but I don’t love soup that requires a ton of cooking time. Using leftover chicken helps this soup come together quickly, so you can get it on the table fast.

Ingredient Notes

• Mirepoix: The classic combination of diced onion, celery, and carrots makes up the base of this soup.
• Flour: Used to make a roux to help thicken our soup. 
• Ranch seasoning: Added along with the flour for the roux, for thickening as well as flavor. 
• Rotel tomatoes: A can of Rotel tomatoes with diced green chiles for texture and flavor. If you’re sensitive to spice, you can use Rotel tomatoes without chiles as well. 
• Buffalo sauce: For the buffalo flavor, use your favorite brand of buffalo wing sauce. This soup only uses a ¼ cup, but if that is too much spice, you can easily cut it in half. 
• Cream cheese: Room temperature cream cheese adds flavor as well as thickness to this creamy soup. 
• Chicken: I like to use rotisserie chicken to make this soup come together quickly, but you can also cook and dice a chicken breast, or even use canned chicken! Whatever you use, you need two cups. 
• Blue cheese: Often paired with buffalo chicken bites or found in buffalo chicken dip, if you like the taste you can add blue cheese crumbles as an optional topping to this soup.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Dice and cook vegetables. Dice ½ a yellow onion, 3 celery sticks, and peel and dice 3 carrots. Set a large pot over medium heat and melt 2 tablespoons of butter, then add the diced vegetables. Stir the vegetables until cooked, about 10 minutes. 
2. Make a roux. To the cooked vegetables, add 1 tablespoon of all purpose flour and 1 oz of dry ranch seasoning. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
3. Add liquid ingredients. Pour in 3 cups of chicken broth, a 10 oz can of Rotel tomatoes with green chiles (undrained), and ¼ cup of buffalo sauce. Stir to combine. 
4. Add cream cheese. Stir in 8 oz of room temperature cream cheese. Cutting the block of cream cheese into small cubes may help it melt into the soup better. Whisk the soup until the cream cheese is completely incorporated and smooth.

5. Add chicken. Once the soup is smooth, add 2 cups of chopped cooked chicken. 
6. Serve. Ladle buffalo chicken soup into bowls, top with optional blue cheese, and enjoy.

Recipe Tips

For a vegetarian version, use a can of chickpeas or white beans in place of chicken and vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. You can also add bulk to this soup by adding a cup of a small pasta like orzo or ditalini, or diced potatoes. If you want more veggies, I think cauliflower florets would be a tasty addition, too.

Additional toppings that I think would be yummy are tortilla chips, green onions, cheddar cheese, or cooked and crumbled bacon. 

This soup is not gluten-free because of the flour in the roux. To make this soup gluten-free, skip the flour. Most dry ranch seasoning is gluten-free, but always double-check your ingredients. The soup will be less thick, but still delicious. 

If you have a higher spice tolerance than my kids, feel free to adjust the amount of hot sauce!

Make this soup even thicker and creamier by blending part of it before you add the cream cheese. You can do this in the pot with a stick blender or immersion blender, or by carefully transferring a cup or two of soup to a blender. Use a towel instead of a lid on your blender to ensure the hot soup does not build up pressure and explode.

Make Ahead, Storing, and Freezing

Make Ahead: It is an unwritten rule that all soup tastes better the next day! This soup will keep well in the fridge for up to 4 days, so depending on how many people you plan to feed and when, you can make it a day or two in advance. 

Storing: Store leftover soup in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.

Freezing: Typically I don’t recommend freezing anything with dairy because the dairy tends to separate when reheated. However, in a soup, I think it might be okay since you’ll stir everything together anyway. Allow the soup to cool completely in the fridge before either pouring it into a gallon ziptop bag to freeze flat, or portion it out in souper cubes or a muffin tin and freeze that way. It should keep in the freezer for up to 3 months. Thawing in the refrigerator overnight is ideal, but you should also be able to microwave portions of soup or reheat them on the stove safely.

Recipe FAQs

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