40+ Easy Dinner Recipes That Start With Shredded Chicken
Whether you've got leftover shredded chicken or you're starting from scratch and need some tasty dinner ideas, we've got you covered with this delicious roundup of our very best shredded chicken recipes.
So what's the big deal with shredded chicken? This lean protein can easily make its way tucked into in smoky shredded chicken enchiladas and tossed into delicious spaghetti. It can be thrown into spicy soup and comforting casseroles and buffalo chicken dip is not the same without good shredded chicken folded in. Craving something seriously savory? Look no further than slow cooker pulled barbecue chicken, which is easy to make when you use shredded chicken.
Somehow, that barely scratches the surface in terms of what shredded chicken can do. We hope you’ll enjoy these 45 enticing recipes that feature shredded chicken as the star ingredient.
Slow Cooker Ranch Chicken Sandwiches
Mark Boughton
Those little packets of ranch dressing mix are good for more than salads and party dips. Use them to make drool-worthy this slow cooker chicken filling that tastes great on wraps, on buns or stuffed in pitas.
30-Minute Cheesy Chicken Pasta Bake
Weeknights may be busy, but that doesn’t mean dinner has to be boring. A delicious 30-minute Italian meal that only takes 15 minutes to prep is entirely within reach with this Roasted Red Pepper and Chicken Pasta Bake.
Slow-Cooker Chicken Burritos
While you're still getting back into the swing of things, slow cooker chicken recipes can make pulling dinner together a breeze. This flavorful filling is great in burritos, tacos or a chicken taco salad. Leftovers are delicious for lunch!
Slow Cooker Green Chile Chicken
Krista Marshall
This dish is filled with so much flavor from the green chilies and green enchilada sauce, but you never have to reveal to your family (or guests) just how simple and inexpensive it is!
Chicken and Pesto-Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Parade
Winter-staple sweet potatoes are the perfect starting point for a healthy, all-in-one meal. In this Chicken and Pesto-Stuffed Sweet Potatoes recipe, bright and garlicky pesto partners deliciously with baked sweet potatoes and shredded chicken.
White Bean and Chicken Chili
Aubrie Pick
This Southwestern-style white bean and chicken chili couldn’t be easier. It’s perfect for game day, holiday movie night or any time you need a comforting bowl of goodness.
Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken Stew
This chicken stew is filled with tender roasted chicken, veggies and a creamy rich broth packed with flavor. It might not look like other stews you've had, because of the thicker consistency than soup, so it's somewhere between a soup and a chowder, like a stew.
Buffalo Chicken "Crack" Dip
Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen
The reason this is called "crack" dip is that you will not be able to stop eating it! We are not joking here—this stuff is crazy! Serve with crackers, chips, celery, carrots, tortilla chips or grilled bread and watch it go fast!
Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Sauce
These enchiladas filled with smoky shredded chicken and cheddar cheese are lighter and fresher than the enchiladas served at most Mexican restaurants—especially when topped with crisp shredded romaine, sour cream, and sliced avocado.
Homesick Texan's Chicken Spaghetti
This satisfying casserole is an old Texan favorite. The version here substitutes a simple cheese sauce for the traditional canned soup, and blackened vegetables add a lively punch of fire-roasted flavor.
How to Make Indian Spiced Chicken Soup
Eva Kolenko
One of the more popular dishes we served at the Bombay Café was murghi shorba. Like any good chicken soup, it is a wonderful comfort for those ailing with a cold—and the addition of chiles certainly clears your sinuses!
Grilled Barbecue Chicken Quesadilla
Take a kid favorite — barbecue chicken — and tuck it into a tortilla. It's full of flavor and easier for little hands to grab. Throw them on the grill for an outdoor appetizer everyone will enjoy.
Forget Taco Night–Make It Patacones Night
Patacones, also known as tostones, are a Latin American food staple. They are simply pieces of green plantain, fried, then flattened, and then fried again. We eat them in Colombia as an appetizer with various toppings, as a side dish, and we make soups with them. Today, I want to share a very simple and popular Colombian patacones recipe with you, Patacones with Shredded Chicken and Avocado. Buen provecho!
Easy Weeknight Meal: Comforting Chicken Casserole
Nisa Burns
I like to post recipes that use rotisserie chickens, since they're ready-to-eat and easy to pick up from the store on the way home from school or work, and then can be quickly remixed into all sorts of different dishes. Below is my latest remixed rotisserie chicken dish. It's an easy weeknight meal that will quickly become a fall favorite. Enjoy!
Buffalo Chicken Dip... Also Known As Chicken Crack Dip
Trust me, you're going to love this chicken crack dip recipe. The reason this is called "crack" dip is that you will not be able to stop eating it! I am not joking here, peeps—this stuff is crazy! This recipe should feed four, at least. But if you're like me, you might want to double it so you can eat as much as possible!
Roast Butternut Squash and Chicken Tacos with Pineapple Salsa
Sanura Weathers
In this autumnal taco, butternut squash is roasted with warm spices and tossed with shredded chicken. The meat and squash filling is placed over a corn tortilla, and before it's folded in half to enclose it, pineapple salsa is spooned on top for a fresh and sweet taste. Of course, no taco is complete without cheese. In this version, only a mild-flavored cheese is needed: cotija. (Think of it as a Mexican version of the Italian ricotta salata.)
Chicken, Cheese and Mushroom Empanadas
Erica Dinho
Empanadas are originally from Spain, but they are a very popular food in Latin America, every country having its own different variation of empanadas. Empanadas are such a great party food. Simple, delicious, and inexpensive, they are great for a crowd of nibbling cocktail drinkers. They can be made in advance and baked or fried right before serving. These empanadas are filled with shredded chicken, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and cheese.
Chicken Pozole
Canned pantry essentials like green chiles, tomatoes and chicken broth really elevate the flavors in this hearty, homemade Mexican stew. The canning process seals in their flavor and natural goodness.
Grandma Manchev’s Chicken Soup
Great chicken soup is nothing to sneeze at. So when Diners, Drive-ins & Dives favorite Forte Tapas offered up their recipe, we couldn’t resist the Bulgarian twist on a cold weather staple. The Las Vegas-based restaurant, captures owner Nina Manchev’s favorite family Bulgarian recipes that have yielded her a Who’s Who of celebrity chef diners.
Crock Pot Chicken 'n' Noodles
Krista Marshall
On busy school/work days, when there is a chill in the air, or when you just need something simple yet scrumptious, your slow cooker can be your best sous chef. Imagine coming home to a comfort food meal that is waiting on you and only needs about 30 minutes before you can eat! Take the hour in the morning to prep while you're getting the kids out the door, and then let the Crock Pot do all the work all day!
Bourbon BBQ Pulled Chicken Sandwich
I've made BBQ sauce a few times, but I'd never written a recipe to go with them. I wanted to do a sweeter sauce, not something too spicy or smoky, so I decided to go the bourbon route. This is definitely a sweeter style sauce, if you want something a bit less sweet, then just cut back some on the molasses. The bourbon flavor is definitely there - if you want the alcohol to cook off completely you should let it cook a bit longer with the onions. Personally, I love the way this recipe comes out as written — it's zesty, tangy, sweet and bourbony.
30-Minute White Chicken Chili
This easy, flavorful shredded chicken and white bean chili recipe has been a favorite soup recipe at our house for years! This is written as a 30-minute stovetop recipe, but it would also translate well to the slow cooker. If you'd like to make it that way, leave out the olive oil, and put everything but the cilantro in your crockpot. Cook it for 6-8 hours on low or 4-6 hours on high (chicken breasts cook quickly!). Before serving, carefully remove the chicken, shred the meat, and stir it back in with the cilantro. You could also opt to use chicken thighs instead of breasts to make this meal even more affordable.
Egg Roll Skillet
This supper celebrates the good stuff inside everyone’s favorite takeout appetizer, without the deep-fried guilt. Krista Marshall, a blogger at everydaymomsmeals.blogspot.com, makes this dish with ground pork, but we’ve swapped in shredded chicken to make it lighter.
Make-Ahead Picnic Sandwiches
Streamline your prep by making one large sandwich and cutting it up once you get to your picnic spot. Make this up to two days in advance using our combos below or your own favorites; just wrap and stash in the refrigerator.
Chicken & Pumpkin Dumplings
This healthy twist on chicken and dumplings gets a fiber and vitamin A boost from fall's favorite squash.
Chicken Fajita Pizza from Guy’s Guide To Eating Well
Holly Clegg
Fajitas and pizza in one recipe – a deliciously unbeatable combination and this recipe is even easy and healthy!
Roasted Chicken Noodle Soup
Some classic recipes are so perfect, you should never mess with them. I get that. A lot of my recipes that came from my grandma are like that. As I like to say, "If grandma made it, you don't mess with it, or there will be riots." Sometimes you can switch up a tried-and-true dish to up its game, and still maintain its integrity. Such is the case here. This soup has all of the flavors we've grown to love over the years, but with one simple change to the chicken, we've got ourselves a whole new dish!
Dijon Chicken Salad Cups
Recipes that serve more than one purpose are always a good idea! This one has a little extra flavor from the Dijon, and serving it in the lettuce "cups" makes it even fresher and lighter. If you want to make it for a party, you can plate them up like this or serve the salad in a big bowl, with the lettuce on a big platter, and let your guests fill their own!
Chicken and Biscuits
Using almond milk reduces the fat and carbs in this indulgent dish.
Pulled BBQ Chicken Sandwich
This recipe was submitted by The Duck Dive in San Diego, courtesy of Chef Ryan Tuskan. It looks and sounds so amazing, I just thought I had to share it with you all here! There is some time and prep involved, but the end result is so perfectly delicious, it's worth every minute.
Slow Cooker Pulled Barbecue Chicken
Krista Marshall
Barbecue anyone? This slow cooker pulled chicken is a flavorful, finger-licking-good barbecue that will have you dreaming about the backyard cookouts we are longing for. Now, there is a good way to chase those winter blues away!
The #1 Chicken Tetrazzini Recipe to Shut Down All the Competition
Shea Goldstein
This tetrazzini is just creamy enough, just cheesy enough, and the mushrooms are my favorite. I love angel hair or vermicelli compared to spaghetti in Chicken Tetrazzini. The thinner the pasta, the better. It’s thin, easier to eat and also cooks so fast. You also don’t have to mess with thick strands of pasta that heat unevenly. Pro tip: If the leftovers seem a bit dry, add just a bit of little milk, stir and heat it up and it will be right back to the way it was.
Chicken & Tortellini Soup With Sage Pesto
Photo by: Yunhee Kim
Alongside some crusty bread and a salad, this recipe makes an excellent meal. If you have no homemade chicken stock on hand, substitute store-bought stock (we won't tell).
Better Than Takeout Sesame Noodles
Dorie Greenspan
For quick chicken, boil 6 cups salted water, 1 clove garlic, and 4 slices ginger; lower heat, add cutlets, and simmer until opaque.
Black Bean Chicken Quesadillas
Chicken is broiled and paired with pureed black beans and a simple salsa made from tomatoes, onion, cilantro and lime juice. Kids will have fun layering the black beans, chicken and cheese, bookended by corn tortillas.
Slow Cooked Salsa Verde Chicken
Salsa Verde Chicken made in the slow cooker or with an enameled Dutch oven, both giving flavorful shredded chicken in every bite.
Crock Pot Mexican Chicken Soup
This is a simple chicken soup recipe which uses only 4 ingredients. Simple is good.
Chicken Florentine Crepes
Shredded rotisserie chicken makes this Chicken Florentine Recipe easy and extra flavorful.
BBQ Ranch Chicken Casserole
Will Cook for Smiles
This tangy pasta casserole is loaded with chicken, corn, and red onion.
Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Shredded Chicken Breast
A pressure cooker is the fastest and easiest way to make shredded chicken! It takes just minutes.
Bacon Chicken Alfredo Squash Noodle Bake
Bacon Chicken Alfredo Squash Noodle Bake is a very comforting, low-carb, gluten-free casserole that is fairly simple to make.
Chicken Avocado Cilantro Lime Soup
The perfect cold weather fix ready in about 30 minutes.
15 Minute Instant Pot Salsa Verde Chicken Breast
Spicy salsa chicken is easy to make, flavorful, and healthy.
Low-Carb Nachos with Spicy Chicken & Cheddar (Gluten-Free)
Spicy chicken nachos are made even better when cheese crisps are used as nacho chips!
Shredded Chicken Chili
This is a creamy chili recipe filled with shredded chicken that can be cooked in the pressure cooker, slow cooker, stove top or even use a rotisserie chicken.
Related: 30+ Amazing Ground Chicken Recipes
