Recipes with shredded chicken. Easy dinner ideas.
These recipes with shredded chicken are fast and flavorful. From pizza to soup, they go well beyond the classics.
When turning out a warm and delicious just seems like a lost cause, it’s time to get creative. Keeping shredded chicken on hand—whether pulled from a store-bought rotisserie chicken or picked up from your local barbecue joint—is a saving grace when getting dinner on the table needs to be . Recipes with shredded chicken go well beyond just slow-cooker tacos too, with tasty options including creamy pasta bakes, classic comfort dishes, hearty stews, and Tex-Mex casseroles. (Though, we’ve made sure to include slow-cooker recipes you can throw together and forget about on busy weeknights.) We all need a secret weapon in the kitchen when time is short, but the hunger is real. Grab that, and plan out your no-fuss menu starring these recipes using shredded chicken.
Spicy Thai Chicken and Rice Noodle Soup.
Lemongrass, ginger, fish sauce, rice noodles all come together in one of my favorite seasonless soups.
Shredded Chicken Street Tacos.
I have this rockin’ recipe for Shredded Chicken Street Tacos that I’ve just been sitting on and sitting on. And so, I decided to try it. Oh, my, oh, my. It was perfection. And now I’m hungry again.
Shredded chicken chili.
Prepare chicken by cooking chicken breasts in a crockpot for 4-6 hours, add a little water so chicken is barely covered in liquid. Once the chicken is cooked through, remove from crockpot and shred with two forks.
Shredded chicken & peanut noodle soup.
A creamy, comforting winter soup. Free-range chicken, buckwheat noodles, and warming ginger and turmeric in a nutty coconut broth. Garnished with fresh coriander and just the right amount of red chili.
Vietnamese Shredded Chicken Salad.
Made with a rotisserie chicken, this salad is easy to whip up and full of bright, spicy Southeast Asian flavor.
Slow Cooker Shredded Mexican Chicken.
Easy Slow Cooker Shredded Mexican Chicken simmered with Mexican spices, salsa and green chilies for amazingly flavorful chicken for tacos, burritos, nachos, soups, salads, etc. and all you do is dump and run! You NEED this in your back pocket!
Leftover chicken is one of your best allies for jump-starting creative home-cooked meals, whether you’ve got last night’s roast or a savory bird from the supermarket. Here are dozens of salads, soups, pizzas and more that make clever use of rotisserie chicken.
How to make shredded chicken?
Shredded chicken can be made in almost any way that you prefer to make chicken and can be made fresh, bought, or made ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen. You can shred any part of the chicken, but I most often use shredded chicken breast or rotisserie chicken. These are some of my favorite ways to make shredded chicken:
- Oven baked Shredded Chicken: Lay chicken breasts flat on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle each side with salt and pepper. Bake at 375ËšF for 20-25 minutes or until cooked throughout.
- Store-bought Shredded Chicken: Buy a rotisserie chicken and pull meat off
- Crock Pot Shredded Chicken: Place chicken breast in a crock pot with 1 cup chicken broth and a bay leaf and season with salt and pepper. Cook on low for 6 hours. You can see a recipe for crockpot shredded chicken made with chicken thighs here.
- Boiled shredded chicken- Boil water or chicken broth and boil chicken until done throughout.
- Leftover shredded chicken- If you have leftover from another meal, like fried chicken, you can remove the chicken from the bones and use it as shredded chicken. If the leftovers already have a strong flavor, you may not want to use it as shredded chicken unless it is going into a recipe that has similar flavors.
- Canned shredded chicken- Canned chicken can be used in shredded chicken recipes, but usually this is the least tasty of the options.
Chicken should be cooked to an internal temperature of 165ËšF throughout to be safe. Over cooking chicken can cause the chicken to be tough or rubbery. I recommend a simple meat thermometerto help you get it just right!
How to shred chicken?
I guess I’m a little old school this way, but I prefer to just use two forks and pull it apart.
There are lots of people who use a hand mixer or stand mixer, and just get in there and it’s shredded in a minute or less, but I find the chicken turns to mush and is super fine.
I like to shred my chicken with forks because I can make the chunks as big or small as I want, and keep some of the texture of the chicken (so you can see it actually is chicken!).
Freezing shredded chicken
Shredded chicken is super easy to freeze. When frozen in small portions, it’s a pre-measured boost of protein for soup, salad or pasta dishes.
To freeze, bring it to room temperature and freeze in individual portions (about 3/4 to 1 cup at a time) in freezer Ziploc bags or in glass bowls.
You can defrost in the fridge overnight or you can reheat in the microwave for 5-6 minutes. Be sure to sprinkle about 1 tbsp of water overtop if microwaving and stir halfway through the reheating time to avoid that pesky leftover chicken taste.
These recipes with shredded chicken that will give you tons of choices for easy weeknight meals. These recipes give you a little bit of everything from your Mexican favorites like shredded chicken tacos and enchiladas, to shredded chicken sandwiches, shredded chicken salads, shredded chicken barbeque, casseroles and everything in between. This will keep your dinner menu full of delicious options!
These recipes with shredded chicken are easy dinner ideas that are perfect for meal prep because they all start with easy shredded chicken.
Browse collection of recipes with shredded chicken.
Shredded chicken & peanut noodle soup
Shredded Chicken Street Tacos
Vietnamese Shredded Chicken Salad
Slow Cooker Shredded Mexican Chicken
Spicy Thai Chicken and Rice Noodle Soup
Shredded chicken chili
