Some nights I just don’t have it in me to cook a real dinner, and I bet you know exactly what I mean. This soup is what I make on those nights. It’s saved me more times than I can count, and it’s become one of those recipes I don’t even think twice about anymore — I just make it.
I started using rotisserie chicken in soups years ago, honestly out of pure laziness at first. I’d pick one up at the grocery store for something else entirely, end up with leftovers, and toss them into whatever pot I had going. Eventually I stopped pretending it was a shortcut and started buying the rotisserie chicken on purpose, just for this soup. There’s no shame in it. It saves you a good 20 minutes of cooking and shredding chicken yourself, and honestly, the flavor holds up just fine.
The tortellini part took me a couple of tries to get right. The first time I made this, I tossed the tortellini straight into the soup pot with everything else, figuring it would just cook along with the rest. Bad idea. By the time everything else was ready, the tortellini had turned to mush and half of them had split open. Now I always boil the tortellini separately first, just until they float, and add them back in at the very end. Two extra minutes of effort, and it makes all the difference in how the soup holds together.
The sun-dried tomatoes are the one ingredient people always ask me about. I almost left them out of this recipe the first time I made it — I wasn’t sure they’d fit with the alfredo base — but they add this little bit of tang that cuts through the richness of the sauce. Once you make it with them, it’s hard to imagine the soup without them.
I usually have this on the table in under 30 minutes, start to finish, which still surprises me every time considering how comforting it tastes. I serve it with warm bread and butter, and it disappears fast at my house. It’s one of those meals that tastes like way more effort went into it than actually did, and honestly, those are my favorite kinds of recipes.
Ingredients
- Rotisserie chicken
- 1/2 bag fresh spinach
- 1 package fresh or frozen cheese tortellini
- 32 oz chicken broth
- 1 jar Alfredo sauce
- 1/2 jar sun-dried tomatoes
Directions
- In a large pot, boil the tortellini according to the package directions, just until it floats. Don’t let it go longer than that — it’ll finish cooking a bit more once it’s back in the soup, and I’ve learned the hard way that overcooked tortellini falls apart.
- Drain the tortellini and set it aside.
- Using that same pot, add the chicken broth and Alfredo sauce. Whisk it together until smooth.
- Shred the rotisserie chicken off the bone and add it to the pot. Bring everything to a boil, then stir in the spinach. Keep it on high for a few minutes until the spinach wilts down.
- Drain and rinse the sun-dried tomatoes, then chop them into small pieces and stir them into the soup.
- Add the tortellini back into the pot and stir for a couple of minutes to bring it all together. Serve it up while it’s hot.
This is a soup I make when I want dinner handled without much thinking involved, and it’s never once let me down. Warm bread on the side, and you’ve got yourself a meal that feels a lot fancier than it actually was to make.
