Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken Jalapeno Popper Soup. Creamy, spicy soup, inspired by Jalapeño Poppers, made with pressure cooker broth from a store-bought rotisserie chicken.
My local coffee shop had Chicken Jalapeño Popper Soup as their featured soup of the month. What a great idea. I have to make that!
Their ingredient list was: Bacon, jalapeño, green pepper, chicken, cream, Monterey jack, sharp cheddar, cream cheese, and “spices”. So, I got to work…and did some Googling. Turns out, that’s a pretty standard ingredient list. Time to break out my Rotisserie Chicken broth technique and get to work.
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The only real trick seemed to be from the Jalapeño Popper Chicken Soup recipe at Better Homes & Gardens, where they recommend whisking the cream cheese with a little of the broth to make sure it is completely smooth before adding it to the soup. This is a much creamier soup than my typical Rotisserie Chicken soups - between the flour, half-and-half, and 3 melted cheeses, it very, VERY rich.
🥫Ingredients
- Rotisserie chicken
- Onion
- Carrot
- Celery
- Bay Leaf
- Bacon
- Green onions
- Green bell pepper
- Jalapeño
- Garlic
- flour
- half and half
- Cream cheese
- Monterrey jack cheese
- Cheddar cheese
See recipe card for quantities.
🥘 Substitutions
If you have a leftover roast chicken carcass, substitute it for the rotisserie chicken. Pick as much meat off the bones as you can, then pressure cook the broth with the bones and any skin or clinging meat that’s left.
If you already have chicken broth (from, say, a batch of Chicken Back Broth) you can skip the chicken. Jalapeño popper soup on its own is quite good. I cook a little extra bacon to make up for the missing chicken, but you don’t have to.
You can substitute leftover chicken and store-bought low sodium chicken broth - but please, try making pressure cooker broth at some point. You’ll be surprised by how much better it tastes.
The onion, carrot, celery, and bay leaf in the broth are my favorite mix of aromatics, but you don’t have to have all of them. You can skip any of them, or substitute more of the ones you have. If you like garlic, adding or substitute a couple of unpeeled cloves of garlic for the onion is a great addition.
You can make this a vegetarian soup by substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth, and skipping the chicken and bacon. (Unfortunately, it can’t be vegan. The cream and cheese are too important to substitute.)
The bacon is optional, but traditional in jalapeño poppers, and it adds a nice crunch to the soup.
If you don’t have green onions, you can substitute a diced yellow or white onion. The garlic is optional.
If you don’t like it hot, substitute two more green bell peppers for the jalapeños. (But why are you making Jalapeño Popper Soup if you don’t like the heat?) If you like it extra hot, add a half teaspoon of cayenne pepper with the flour to kick up the heat.
The flour and half and half add extra creaminess to the recipe. You can skip them, or substitute more broth for the half and half, but this is supposed to be a cream soup, so I don’t recommend it.
The mix of cream cheese, Monterrey jack, and cheddar are what stuff a regular jalapeño popper, so they’re what I include in the soup. Cream cheese adds its tang and smoothness, Monterey Jack acts as a thick melting cheese, and cheddar has the flavor, so I try to get all of them for this soup. If you’re missing any of them, just substitute an equal amount of the others.
🛠 Equipment
📏Scaling
This recipe scales down down easily - cut everything in half if you don't need as much soup, or have a 3-quart pressure cooker. Scaling up runs into space issues. If you have an 8-quart pressure cooker, you can double this recipe, but it's too much to fit in a 6-quart pressure cooker. The cooking time is the same as the regular recipe, even if you scale up or down.
💡Tips and Tricks
- I’m tricking you into extra homemade broth with this recipe - a whole rotisserie chicken will make 8 cups of broth, but you only need 4 cups for this recipe. Refrigerate the leftover broth for up to 3 days, or freeze it for up to 6 months, and you can make a second batch of soup whenever you’re ready.
- Pressure cooker broth is my other PC killer application. (I’m borrowing the killer app phrase from my years working in the computer industry.) I started using my pressure cooker on a regular basis because of the awesome chicken broth it makes. Homemade chicken broth is the key to a good soup, so please, try it at least once. I think you will become a homemade broth fan, like me.
Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken Jalapeno Popper Soup
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 12 cups of soup 1x
Description
Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken Jalapeno Popper Soup. Creamy, spicy soup, inspired by Jalapeño Poppers, made with pressure cooker broth from a store-bought rotisserie chicken.
Ingredients
Rotisserie Chicken Broth
- 1 (2- to 4-pound) rotisserie chicken, breast meat removed and saved for later
- Juices from the rotisserie chicken container
- 1 onion, peeled and halved
- 1 carrot, scrubbed and broken in half (or 4oz baby carrots)
- 1 stalk celery, broken in half
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 8 cups water
Rotisserie Chicken Jalapeño Popper Soup
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 4 ounces thick-cut bacon, diced
- 4 green onions, diced
- 1 green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and diced
- 4 jalapeño peppers, stemmed, seeded, and diced
- 1 clove garlic, smashed
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ¼ cup flour
- 8 ounces half and half
- 4 cups Rotisserie Chicken Broth (from above)
- Breast meat from the rotisserie chicken, shredded (2 to 3 cups)
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened and cut into cubes
- 6 ounces (1 ½ cups) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
- 6 ounces (1 ½ cups) shredded cheddar cheese
Accompaniments
- More shredded cheddar
- More minced jalapeno peppers
- Cooked diced bacon (from above)
Instructions
- Pressure cook the rotisserie chicken broth for 60 minutes with a Natural Release: (Detailed broth recipe is here.) Cut the chicken breast meat off of the rotisserie chicken and set aside for later. Add the rotisserie chicken carcass, onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, and salt to an Instant Pot or other pressure cooker, then pour in the 8 cups of water. (It should just cover the rotisserie chicken – it’s OK if the knobs of the drumsticks are poking up.) Lock the lid and pressure cook on high pressure for 60 minutes with a natural pressure release in an Instant Pot or other electric PC (Manual or Pressure Cook mode in an Instant Pot) or 50 minutes in a stovetop PC. The natural pressure release will take 30 to 40 minutes minutes. (It takes a long time for all that water to cool off. If you’re in a hurry, let the pressure come down for at least 20 minutes, then quick release any remaining pressure.) Scoop the chicken carcass and vegetables out of the pot with a slotted spoon and discard; they’ve given their all to the broth. Strain the broth through a fine mesh strainer, and set aside for later. Wipe out the pressure cooker pot liner, then put it back in the pressure cooker base.
- Cook the bacon: Set the pot to sauté mode (medium heat for a stovetop PC) and add the vegetable oil and bacon. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is crisp, about 5 minutes. Scoop the bacon out of the pot with a slotted spoon, leaving as much fat behind as possible.
- Sauté the aromatics: Immediately stir in the green onions, bell pepper, diced jalapeños, and garlic, and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of salt. Cook until the onion softens, about 5 minutes, stirring and scraping often with a flat edged wooden spoon to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. Once the onions are soft, stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot to make sure it doesn't stick.
- Broth and Chicken in the pot: Slowly add the half and half, and then the rotisserie chicken broth, stirring constantly so the flour doesn’t form lumps. Scrape the bottom of the pot one last time with a flat edged wooden spoon to make sure nothing is sticking. Stir in the shredded chicken breast and 1 teaspoon of salt. Increase the heat to high (Adjust Sauté mode to high in an Instant Pot) and bring the broth to a simmer.
- Smooth out the cream cheese: Put the cream cheese in a heat-proof bowl (I use a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup), then add 1 cup of the hot broth from the pot. Whisk the cream cheese in the bowl until it is smooth.
- Melt the cheese: Add the smoothed cream cheese into the Instant Pot, then the cheddar and Monterrey Jack cheese. Stir until the cheeses melt into the broth.
- Serve: Ladle the soup into bowls, topping each with some shredded cheddar, green onion, and a jalapeño slice or two. Serve and enjoy!
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: Sunday Dinner
- Method: Pressure Cooker
- Cuisine: American
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☃️ Storage
This recipe makes extra broth on purpose - there is enough for a second batch of soup. I freeze any broth I’m not going to use immediately in 2-cup and 4-cup containers, usually canning jars. Frozen broth keeps for up to 6 months.
The broth can be made ahead before making the soup - refrigerate or freeze the broth and the chicken breasts - and then start the recipe with the “cook the bacon” step when you are ready.
This soup, like most cream soups, doesn’t store as well as a typical broth-based soup. You can refrigerate it in 2-cup containers for a couple of days, or freeze for up to six months, but the fat in the cream may separate and float to the top. It will still taste fine, but needs a good whisking to bring the soup and fat back together.
🤝 Related Posts
Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup
Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken Gumbo Soup
My other Instant Pot and Pressure Cooker Recipes
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Peter says
Under Tips and Tricks you say you only need 4 cups of broth for this recipe.
Under the list of ingredients you say 8 cups.
I'm assuming the latter as the recipe makes 12 cups of soup, but I wanted to confirm.
Mike Vrobel says
Darn it, cut and paste will be the death of me. 4 cups of broth is correct.
Mike Vrobel says
Fixed. Thanks for the heads up!
Peter says
Well damn I wish I had checked back. I made it with 8 cups of broth. It was still delicious, but it needed more flour to thicken it (surprise surprise).
If I had only done 4 cups of broth it would have been super luscious!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the recipe.
Mike Vrobel says
You're welcome!