30+ Easy But Delicious Leftover Chicken Recipes In 2023

Dishes made with leftover chicken are more diverse, attractive, and delicious than you think. Reheating chicken leftovers and serving them as you did quickly make you feel bored and want to throw them away. But, don’t do that; you have many ways to remake it.

If you are only thinking of whether you should boil your frozen chicken, there are various ways to cook chicken leftovers without losing their flavor, juiciness, crunchiness, and freshness. With some recipes, you cannot realize they are made from fresh or leftover chicken.

Finding some ways to remake your leftover chicken is an excellent way to save your food after big spending for parties, celebrations, holidays, and etc. Besides, using chicken leftovers can also save you much more time to cook chicken until golden brown skin just for toppings.

Let’s go to discover what you can do with your leftover chicken!

What To Do With Chicken Leftovers?

With cooked chicken, you can do many things in terms of fillings for sandwiches, salad, pie, soup, pasta, fried rice, or stuff like this. The list below will show you what you can make with your chicken leftovers. Let’s see what they are.

Incredible Salads With Chicken Leftovers

1. Peanut Butter Chicken Salad Sandwich
2. Leftover Chicken Salad
3. Leftover Chicken Lentil Soup
4. Chicken Noodle Soup
5. Leftover Chicken Chili
6. Honey Mustard Chicken Tender Salad
7. Chicken Tacos
8. Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Starchy Dishes With Remaining Chicken

9. Leftover Roast Chicken Risotto
10. Leftover Roast Chicken Pasta
11. Leftover Chicken Flatbread Pizza
12. Leftover BBQ Chicken Quesadilla
13. French Onion Chicken And Rice Bake
14. Chicken Shepherd’s Pie
15. Leftover Chicken Fried Rice
16. Thai Chicken Soba Noodle Salad Jars
17. Chicken Ragu With Bacon
18. Leftover Chicken Stew With Dumplings
19. Asian Chicken Rice Bowl
20. Chicken Alfredo Lasagna
21. Leftover Roast Chicken Biryani

Other Brilliant Chicken Leftover Dishes

22. Leftover Chicken Enchiladas
23. Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
24. Chicken Nachos
25. BBQ Chicken Casserole
26. Honey-Garlic Chicken Stir-Fry
27. Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken
28. Summer Chicken Rolls
29. Chicken Mac And Cheese
30. Leftover Chicken Curry
31. Leftover Chicken And Potato Bake

Top 31 Super Delicious Leftover Chicken Recipes

Continue reading to get deeper information about the 31 mentioned recipes. I will tell you what they are, what you need to make them, how they taste, and what to serve with them to raise their flavor.

Incredible Salads And Soup With Chicken Leftovers

Making salads and soup with leftover chicken is the easiest but the best idea because the flavor of veggies, fruits, and dressing will make your remaining cooked chicken once again great. Continue reading to know what salads you can make with the chicken.

1. Peanut Butter Chicken Salad

Nothing is easier than using chicken leftovers to make a salad with peanut and butter, and I think your children will be super into the salad. You can serve them as a refreshing breakfast or lunch.

You can create an incredibly wonderful salad with some preparation, such as some simple ingredients like diced apple, peanut butter, mayo, shredded chicken, and finely diced cucumber. You can use the salad as sandwich fillings. That’s so amazing!

2. Leftover Chicken Salad

Using leftover salad might be one of the easiest things you can do to save your time and also budget but also get a healthy, nutritious, and flavorful dish. If you want to eat cold chicken, this dish is also a great choice. 

Chicken salad is so common with fresh salad leaves, sliced tomatoes, thinly sliced cucumbers, and a creamy sauce. This delightful sauce is made with mayonnaise, chopped onion, fresh dill, shredded chicken, pepper, and salt.

You can serve the salad with loaves of bread or just enjoy it as a whole meal.

3. Leftover Chicken Lentil Soup

Your family member cannot realize whether you used fresh or leftover chicken to make chicken lentil soup because the added ingredients make the dish great again.

The soup is filled with shredded chicken, chopped carrots, celery, and thyme, making it a healthy, nutritious, tasty, and comforting soup for winter days.

This soup makes a nutritious savory way to start your day. Remember to set aside a particular amount of leftover chicken the night before.

The video will let you know the easiest way to cook lentil soup with your leftover chicken.

4. Chicken Noodle Soup

Let’s cook a classic and comforting dish by using leftover chicken and boxed broth. The combination of thinly sliced vegetables like carrots and celery Vilalia yellow onion can light up your soup.

However, it’s shredded cooked chicken that creates your soup’s unique flavor together with tons of fresh herbs and spices, making the soup one of the common choices on winter days.

For some of you, chicken soup can recall unforgettable memories with your beloved people.

5. Leftover Chicken Chili

It will be a pleasant surprise to make a dish with a traditional tomato base, leftover chicken, and cayenne pepper zing. This well-seasoned mixture is finished with sharp cheddar and cool sour cream.

Hearty, filling, and tasty leftover chicken chili is a must-try dinner in the autumn when it gets cooler to keep oneself warm. Can you imagine your family gathering and enjoying a big pot of chili? It will be happy and warm.

The video will guide you on cooking leftover chicken chili in Mexican style.

6. Honey Mustard Chicken Tender Salad

Another way to make a salad with chicken is honey mustard chicken tender salad; it’s not like normal chicken salad with shredded chicken meat. This salad is made with golden-brown fried chicken meat, vegetables, and of course, a fabulous dressing.

You can choose whatever veggies you love, such as carrots, tomatoes, and baby spring mix salad, while the dressing is made with yogurt, apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, olive oil, salt, and fresh black pepper.

7. Chicken Tacos

For chicken tacos, you need to prepare fillings by reheating your leftover chicken and warming tortillas. Now, it’s time to assemble all of them. Fill these tortillas with chicken and add them with avocado, cilantro, and slaw.

You can serve these chicken tacos with hot sauce, lime wedges, and fried beans to raise the tastiness.

It can help you make a leftover chicken taco with ease.

8. Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Chop your leftover chicken and turn them into fabulous chicken lettuce wraps, which can bring you a sense of freshness and full flavor from stir-fry chicken. The dish seems to be one of the easiest recipes you can make with leftover chicken.

Your leftover chicken is flavored with garlic, onion, hoisin sauce, so sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger, and black pepper will have an irresistible taste.

Starchy Dishes With Remaining Chicken

If you want to satisfy your hunger with your leftover chicken, just combine it with pasta and rice, or even transform it into meaty pie and cakes as a starch source for your body.

9. Leftover Chicken Flatbread Pizza

Homemade pizza is always healthy, nutritious, and super delicious to taste, and pizza will taste better with leftover chicken as toppings. The leftover chicken flatbread pizza is a good idea to have for your lunches.

What can make you surprised is that the leftover chicken in this recipe is much more flavorful than the fresh one. The addition of cheese, tomato paste, and chicken leftovers to flatbread make you appetized.

You can serve the pieces of chicken flatbread pizza with sauce and cheese if you want.

Watch this video to know more:

10. Leftover Roast Chicken Risotto

Maybe, you cannot find any recipes that are easier than this classic European dish with leftover roast chicken. Just toss leftover chicken and favorite veggies in a pot with some white or brown rice and cook.

The crispiness and natural sweetness from carrots and broccoli, together with tasty flavor from red pepper, can add bland, starchy rice a distinctive flavor.

Moreover, some added toppings like peas and grated parmesan cheese will make your dish bright and tangier.

11. Leftover Roast Chicken Pasta

Another way to repurpose roasted chicken is to turn them into unique toppings for other dishes. This easy recipe with leftover chicken can help you save time and money.

All right, just combine tomato sauce, chicken, bacon, peas, garlic, cream, and pasta; you can get the dish ready in 15 minutes. This recipe is an ideal idea if you just have a small amount of leftover roasted chicken.

12. Leftover BBQ Chicken Quesadilla

Level up your quesadillas by adding chunks of juicy, tasty, and full-flavored leftover BBQ chicken. With cooked chicken like this, you can save a lot of time and, of course, your family budget, but also ensure that your family can get decent meals.

Basically, you can reuse many leftover things from a BBQ party, not just chicken, so you can load the crispy tortillas with leftover corn on the cob, black beans, chicken, shredded cheddar, and cheeses. All of them join together and make the quesadilla great to enjoy.

13. French Onion Chicken And Rice Bake

French onion chicken and rice bake is another suggestion for remaking your chicken leftovers. The recipe is made with cooked chopped chicken, cream of chicken soup, French onion dip, shredded cheddar cheese, and instant white rice.

To save time, you can make it in advance and refrigerate or freeze it for later use and just thaw it before baking for use.

With the addition of starch rice, the recipe is also good to satisfy your hunger.

14. Chicken Shepherd’s Pie

Let’s remake your chicken leftovers to a beautiful chicken Shepherd’s pie with a flavorful taste. Chicken shepherd’s pie is basically a thick mixture made with milk, lemon juice, rosemary, Dijon mustard, and curry powder mashed potatoes.

Adding consistency with chicken and frozen or fresh vegetables can make your dish more delicious and appealing. Besides, the final touch of mashed potatoes and parmesan cheese can raise your dish’s deliciousness to a new level.

The video will show you how to make chicken shepherd’s pie.

15. Leftover Chicken Fried Rice

Your stomach will be filled up with your fried rice with leftover chicken as a main topping and a lot of other ingredients like sweetcorn, chopped carrots, green peas, or chopped green beans.

Although making chicken fried rice is so easy, that doesn’t mean that its flavor is not as good as the other. The dish can bring you crunchy chopped vegetables, full-seasoned rice, and sweet and tasty shredded chicken. You won’t notice whether the chicken is leftover or not.

16. Thai Chicken Soba Noodle Salad Jars

Thai dishes never let you down; just help you let your hair down! So let’s consider repurposing your chicken leftovers by making Thai chicken soba noodle salad jars for summer days.

This recipe includes cooked chicken, soba noodles, broccoli slaw, pepper, onion, salted peanuts, chopped basil, and satay sauce. Among them, what makes chicken soba noodles salad jars stand out is satay sauce.

Dressing the salad jars with satay sauce made from coconut milk, peanut butter, soy sauce, rice vinegar, dried ginger, and sesame oil will light up the dish and make it more attractive.

17. Chicken Ragu With Bacon

Another suggestion to cook with your leftover chicken is chicken ragu with bacon. What you need to make the dish is bacon, boneless skinless chicken thighs, chicken broth, fennel, onion, flour, and ground pepper.

You can serve this recipe with pasta, ricotta spaetzle, or gnocchi. Besides, topping it over cauliflower rice, steamed rice, roasted or baked vegetables can help you raise the flavor of chicken ragu with bacon.

The following guideline in the video to make a wonderful chicken ragu with bacon.

18. Leftover Chicken Stew With Dumplings

What else can you do with leftover roasted chicken? Let’s turn it into a comforting chicken stew with soft dumplings.

The magic combo of chicken, dumplings, and some added veggies can make your dish fantastic and irresistible to you and your whole family members.

There are tons of tricks to make this chicken and dumplings even better than you’d imagine. For example, you can use baked potatoes, a big chunk of crusty bread or mashed potatoes to top over the dish instead of using dumplings.

The dish can be served with potatoes or a pie crust to get a better taste.

19. Asian Chicken Rice Bowl

Asian chicken rice bowl can be your choice with your available leftover chicken in your fridge when you are so hungry because the dish is quick and easy to make.

Your chicken leftovers will be remade together with bell peppers, mushrooms, rice vinegar, green beans, peas, and carrots, contributing the natural sweetness to the whole dish.

You can serve your chicken with white rice or cauliflower rice if you are on a diet.

20. Chicken Alfredo Lasagna

Chicken alfredo lasagna is an easy and delightful dish with leftover chicken and satisfies your flavor expectation. The dish is made with rotisserie chicken, Barilla lasagna noodles, and white alfredo sauce.

The white alfredo sauce contains heavy cream, ricotta cheese, parmesan, and a simple seasoning of pepper and salt, while the filling is made up of spinach, chicken, mozzarella cheese, garlic, and onion.

Chicken lasagna can be a meal itself, but you can also serve them with a big green salad or garlic bread for better flavor.

21. Leftover Roast Chicken Biryani

What else to do with roasted chicken leftovers? I think you can use up the pieces to make a dish called leftover roast chicken biryani. The dish is made with rice, coconut milk, shredded chicken, peas, and chopped fresh coriander.

You can serve it with bread, pickles, or chutneys to get the perfect meal.

Other Brilliant Chicken Leftover Dishes

Besides salads, soup, or fried chicken and rice and chicken pasta, you can also remake your chicken leftovers in many different ways. You can add the remaining chicken to the cheese and spice mixture to create another good recipe with chicken.

22. Leftover Chicken Enchiladas

Some of you haven’t heard about this recipe, so if you have chicken available, let’s try making and enjoying it because it is so easy to make.

These batches are made with shredded cooked chicken, whole wheat tortillas, fresh baby spinach, enchilada sauce, plain yogurt, and black beans.

You can serve steamed rice or veggies to go with leftover chicken enchiladas to get a better flavor and be more delicious.

Check it to know basic steps to finish chicken enchiladas with your chicken leftovers.

23. Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Have you ever heard about the combination of chicken and sweet potatoes? If you are a fan of both separate chicken and sweet potatoes, let’s take this chance to discover how amazing this combo is.

Boneless chicken breasts are simmered in hot sauce before topped over baked sweet potatoes. The natural sweetness of sweetness goes with well-seasoned chicken, making a dish with perfect taste.

24. Chicken Nachos

Chicken nachos is the combination of your shredded leftover chicken, tortilla chips, cheeses, foil, and some favorite toppings like beans, fresh jalapeno, chopped tomatoes, and sliced black olives.

Your leftover chicken is remade to be rotisserie chicken meat before being combined, making it more flavorful and tasty. Besides, together with crispy chips and fresh toppings, your chicken nachos will be appealing, healthy, nutritious, and light.

25. BBQ Chicken Casserole

This recipe will become your family’s go-to dish at the dinner table. The casserole is heavenly and filling as it contains sweet corn, delightful barbecue sauce, tender chicken, and tangy cheddar cheese.

What makes your dish outstanding is BBQ sauce that flavors the whole meal and raises it to a new level of deliciousness.

You can serve BBQ chicken casserole with baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, cilantro-lime rice, garlic bread, salad, or tortilla chips.

26. Honey-Garlic Chicken Stir-Fry

Honey-garlic chicken stir-fry is one of the simplest recipes you can do with your leftover chicken. The dish is covered by the natural sweetness of veggies and the full flavor of marinated chicken meat.

The addition of broccoli, asparagus, green beans, or carrots will light up your leftover chicken dish.

You can serve it with easy white rice; the tangy flavor and delightful taste will make you irresistible to eat it.

It will guide you on cooking honey-garlic chicken stir-fry.

27. Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken

Buffalo chicken stuffed in baked sweet potato skins will become your top choice when you have leftover chicken because of its distinctive flavor that combines marinated shredded chicken, sweet potato flesh, and ranch dressing.

With a slow cooking method, it takes you around 4 to 6 hours to finish the dish, so plan to cook it in advance.

You can side it with roasted broccoli. This combo will make you satisfied and mouth-watering.

28. Summer Chicken Rolls

Summer chicken rolls are also an ideal idea you can make with your chicken leftovers. These rolls are made with fresh and crunchy veggies, chicken, herbs, and delightful dressing, making them a healthy, nutritious, and flavorful dish.

These summer rolls are wrapped with a special Vietnamese rice paper exterior that is soft and flexible to cover all fillings

29. Chicken Mac And Cheese

One more easy recipe I want to introduce to you is chicken mac and cheese, which is the magic combination of your cooked or fresh chicken, macaroni, cheeses, milk, and some other ingredients to flavor your dish.

Besides those main ingredients, you can also mix mac and cheese with bacon, sausage, corn, peas, mushrooms, spinach, or broccoli to make your dish more appealing to eat.

30. Leftover Chicken Curry

Nothing is more appealing than leftover chicken curry, I think. Maybe, after finishing the article for you, I will make the dish with my remaining chicken as I am a sucker for chicken-based dishes.

The dish contains shredded chicken simmered in a mixture of onion, garlic, turmeric, curry powder, flour, chicken stock, and tomato puree.

Cauliflower rice or simple salad goes well with leftover chicken curry and stimulates your taste.

Try this tutorial to cook a nice chicken curry with your leftover chicken.

31. Leftover Chicken And Potato Bake

If you are finding an idea for your dinner tonight with your leftover chicken, there is no better suggestion than chicken and potato bake – an affordable meal.

Place chopped potatoes in the bottom of the dish, add cooked chicken and butter, season the mixture with salt, pepper, and some milk, and then bake it for 1 hour. That’s all you need to do to make chicken and potato bake. That’s an easy but fantastic dish!

Let’s Leftover Chicken Light Your Meal Up

I have introduced you to over 30 dishes made with leftover chicken. You can use up your cooked chicken to save cooking time and get the dish accessible without spending money anymore. With cooking skills, your leftover chicken will be as delicious and tangy as it was.

However, make sure that you store your chicken leftovers properly to ensure that it doesn’t go bad when being remade. Store it in the fridge or freezer with an airtight container is a suggested idea to prolong its expiration.

If you think that my article is useful for you and your relatives, save and share it with them, and if you would like to share something about your experiences on leftover chicken recipes, don’t hesitate to leave the comment below.