Easy Rotisserie Chicken Recipes

Thai Chicken Soup
Photo: © Fredrika Stjärne

Rotisserie chicken is a simple, satisfying main ingredient that also makes for great leftovers. These rotisserie chicken recipes are great when you're in a time crunch. Whether you need to pack a quick lunch or whip up an easy, stress-free dinner, you've come to the right place. This collection is full of fan favorites including savory burritos, cheesy calzones, and hearty soup.

01 of 19

Chicken-and-Okra Gumbo

Chicken-and-Orka Gumbo
© Quentin Bacon

Chef Rembs Layman prepares rich gumbo with house-made stock and a jerk seasoning blend from Christina's Spice & Specialty Foods. To make this dish at home, use store-bought rotisserie chicken, canned chicken broth and supermarket jerk or Cajun seasoning.

02 of 19

Leftover Blue Cheese Chicken Salad Sandwich

Leftover Blue Cheese Chicken Salad Sandwich
© Con Poulos

Jonathan Waxman's tasty chicken salad is dressed with a mix of tart yogurt and funky Gorgonzola cheese.

03 of 19

Skillet Chicken-and-Mushroom Potpie

Skillet Chicken-and-Mushroom Potpie
© Stephanie Foley

Grace Parisi proves that making potpie doesn't have to take a long time with this one-skillet version, prepared with store-bought rotisserie chicken and — her stroke of brilliance — buttered white bread in place of the usual labor-intensive puff pastry crust.

04 of 19

Buffalo Chicken Calzones

Buffalo Chicken Calzones
David Cicconi

To make the most of rotisserie chicken, Food & Wine's Justin Chapple tosses it with a buttery Buffalo sauce, then bakes it into a calzone with Monterey Jack cheese. In keeping with traditional Buffalo wings, he serves the calzone with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing.

05 of 19

Chicken and Cabbage Tacos with Cilantro Cream

Chicken and Cabbage Tacos with Cilantro Cream
© Raymond Hom

This easy taco recipe tosses red cabbage, scallions, and jalapeños together with shredded rotisserie chicken.

06 of 19

Potato Flatbreads with Chicken and Cilantro-Yogurt Sauce

Roast Chicken Dosas
© David Malosh

Inspired by the crispy, light, naturally fermented Indian dosas, these lacy flatbreads are made with a combination of mashed potatoes and white rice flour, and are leavened with club soda instead. Wrapped around shredded rotisserie chicken that's been tossed with yogurt, cilantro, and red onion, they make a delicious (and portable) gluten-free lunch.

07 of 19

Quick Chicken-and-Cheese Tamales

Quick Chicken-and-Cheese Tamales
© Tina Rupp

Melissa Rubel Jacobson uses a store-bought rotisserie bird in her reinvented chicken salad. She spikes the mayonnaise with chile sauce and toasted sesame oil and adds water chestnuts for crunch.

08 of 19

Chicken Salad with Cucumber, Red Pepper, and Honey-Mustard Dressing

Chicken Salad with Cucumber, Red Pepper, and Honey-Mustard Dressing
© Sabra Krock

A store-bought rotisserie chicken keeps the preparation time short. If you want just chicken salad with no greens, skip the lettuce; double the chicken, cucumber, bell pepper, onion, and tarragon; and toss them with the dressing.

09 of 19

Chicken Flautas

Crispy Corn Tortillas with Chicken and Cheddar
© Lucas Allen

For these flautas, tortillas are rolled around a savory filling and pan-fried until crisp.

10 of 19

Green Goddess Chicken Salad

Green Goddess Chicken Salad

© Petrina Tinslay

Green Goddess dressing — a mix of mayonnaise, sour cream, herbs, anchovies and lemon — was created at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in the 1920s, as a tribute to an actor starring in a play called The Green Goddess. The creamy dressing is typically tossed with a green salad, but it's also delicious in Melissa Rubel Jacobson's chicken salad, made with a rotisserie bird.

11 of 19

Silky Tortilla Soup

Silky Tortilla Soup
© Con Poulos

Chef Rene Ortiz serves modernist Mexican dishes at La Condesa in Austin. His smoky, tomatoey tortilla soup is a bit simpler and more classic than many of his recipes, but it still has an innovative touch: It's enriched with butter, not tortillas.

12 of 19

Creamy Piquillo Pepper and Chickpea Soup with Chicken

Creamy Piquillo Pepper and Chickpea Soup with Chicken
© Christina Holmes

The secret to this speedy soup is buying ingredients with lots of built-in flavor, like hummus and jarred piquillo peppers.

13 of 19

Avgolemono Chicken Soup with Rice

Avgolemono Chicken Soup with Rice
© Yunhee Kim

Avgolemono is a classic sauce of chicken broth, egg yolks and lemon juice; the addition of a bit more chicken broth, rice and shredded chicken turns it into a satisfying soup.

14 of 19

Chicken Salad with Blue Cheese and Grapes

Chicken Salad with Blue Cheese and Grapes
Grace Parisi

Grace Parisi considered many classic salads, like Waldorf and Cobb, before deciding on her version of chicken salad, which mixes store-bought roasted chicken with blue cheese, grapes, celery and sunflower seeds. She likes eating it wrapped in Bibb lettuce leaves.

15 of 19

Chicken-and-Garlic Chowder

Chicken-and-Garlic Chowder
© Tina Rupp

The beauty of this recipe is that it takes advantage of an array of terrific prefab ingredients, from prepeeled garlic and precut butternut squash to rotisserie chicken and frozen sofrito (the Spanish green-pepper-and-onion seasoning paste). Poaching the prepeeled garlic cloves in milk helps bring out an extraordinary depth of flavor.

16 of 19

Sugar Snap Pea Salad

Sugar Snap Pea Salad Recipe
Photo by Greg DuPree / Prop Styling by Christine Keely / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer

Sweet sugar snap peas give this light summer salad from Ivan Conill's Branch Line in Boston a satisfying crunch, while whole-milk ricotta adds heft with its creamy richness. Shredded rotisserie chicken may be omitted for a vegetarian version, or you can substitute with flaked hot smoked salmon.

17 of 19

Fast Rotisserie Chicken Lasagna

Fast Rotisserie Chicken Lasagna

© Kristen Stevens

Use leftover rotisserie chicken and you can have this lasagna prepped and in the oven in only 15 minutes.

18 of 19

French Onion Chicken Pot Pie

French Onion Chicken Pot Pie

Antonis Achilleos / Food Styling by Ali Ramee / Prop Styling by Christine Keely

This is about to be your new favorite comfort dish, and using store-bought rotisserie chicken instead of chicken thighs makes it even easier.

19 of 19

Gnocchi with Roast Chicken, Bacon, and Kale

Gnocchi with chicken, bacon and kale
Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Dickey / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless

Store-bought gnocchi and rotisserie chicken do much of the heavy lifting here, making this cozy dinner easy to pull off on a weeknight.

Was this page helpful?
Related Articles