This 5-ingredient white chicken chili recipe is super quick and easy to make, full of great flavor, and always a crowd fave!
After sharing a new recipe for easy (red) chicken chili, I thought I would circle back today to share one of my all-time favorite recipes for easy white chicken chili.
Even better — my favorite easy white chicken chili recipe that is made with just FIVE easy ingredients. ♡
This recipe is as easy as it gets. Simply stir all of the ingredients together, bring the soup to a simmer, ladle it up while it’s nice and hot, then pile on your favorite toppings and enjoy! I’ve probably made this recipe at least a hundred times over the years, and it always has a way of hitting the spot. It also freezes and reheats well if you would like to save the leftovers or make and save a big batch for easy meal prep.
I’m telling you — this recipe is always a winner. Let’s make a batch!
5-Ingredient White Chicken Chili Ingredients:
To make this white chicken chili recipe, you will need the following five ingredients (plus I highly recommend going big on toppings):
- Chicken: Any kind of diced or shredded chicken will do. I typically shred a rotisserie or use leftover frozen chicken from my Instant Pot Shredded Chicken or Baked Chicken Breasts recipe.
- Salsa verde: Either homemade or store-bought, whichever you prefer. I will note that store-bought brands of roasted salsa verde can vary pretty dramatically in terms of heat. So if you prefer a milder soup, I would definitely recommend finding a salsa that is on the milder side.
- Beans: You are welcome to use whatever type of beans you love best for this chicken chili. I typically use white beans (such as Great Northerns), but pinto, garbanzo or black beans would be delicious too.
- Chicken stock: Because this ingredient list is so short, I recommend using a good-quality brand of chicken stock or veggie stock, whichever you prefer.
- Cumin: We will also add in a hint of cumin to the broth to helps round out the seasonings in the salsa verde.
- Toppings: Finally, I recommend using a generous amount of whatever toppings you love best! I almost always add cilantro and fresh avocado to my soup. But a crumble of tortilla chips, diced red or green onions, sour cream, shredded cheese (sharp cheddar, Monterrey Jack or a Mexican-blend), crumbled cotija cheese, and/or sliced jalapeños would also be delicious additions!
How To Make This Soup:
To make this 5-ingredient white chicken chili recipe, simply…
- Combine ingredients. Stir together chicken stock, shredded chicken, beans, salsa and cumin in large stockpot.
- Bring to a simmer. Cook on high heat until the soup reaches a simmer. Then reduce heat to medium-low to maintain the simmer briefly for 5 minutes.
- Serve. Then ladle the soup up into serving bowls, garnished with your favorite toppings.
Possible Variations:
There are so many ways that you could get creative with this soup recipe! For example, feel free to…
- Add extra veggies. If you would like to add some extra veggies to this soup, diced poblano peppers, onions and/or potatoes (feel free to use frozen hash brown potatoes as a shortcut) are some of my other favorite additions.
- Make it in the Crock-Pot or Instant Pot. This soup really just needs to be stirred together and warmed. So feel free to let it simmer on low in the Crock-Pot or use the sauté button on your Instant Pot, if you would prefer to use one of those appliances.
More Favorite Chili Recipes:
Here are a few more of my go-to chili recipes, if you would like to give them a try!
5-Ingredient White Chicken Chili
Ingredients
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 3 to 4 cups cooked shredded chicken
- 2 (15-ounce) cans beans of your choice, rinsed and drained (I used Great Northern beans)
- 2 cups (16 ounces) salsa verde (store-bought or homemade)
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- optional toppings: diced avocado, chopped fresh cilantro, shredded cheese, chopped red or green onions, sour cream, crumbled tortilla chips, fresh jalapeño slices
Instructions
- Combine ingredients. Stir together chicken stock, shredded chicken, beans, salsa and cumin in large stockpot.
- Bring to a simmer. Cook on high heat until the soup reaches a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue simmering for 5 minutes.
- Serve. Serve immediately, garnished with lots of your favorite toppings.
Notes
Did you make this?Let me know how it turned out in the comments below!
What is the nutrition for this recipie?
Hi Maya! We’re sorry but we are unsure of the nutrition facts/amount of calories in this recipe. We currently are not publishing nutrition facts on the site, as the nutrition calculators available are not 100% accurate, and we never want to publish anything that might be misleading. However, a lot of our readers love the My Fitness Pal nutrition calculator, so feel free to try that for an estimate. We hope that helps!
Made this tonight. All I can say is YUM!!
We’re so glad you enjoyed it Gretchen!
Do you have a recipe for Gusada? Not sure if my spelling is correct! I love burritos with Gusada meat, beans, and potatoes! I hope you can help me find one. I love your recipes and can’t wait to try them out!
Hi Dana! Unfortunately we do not have a recipe for Gusada, though it sounds amazing! We might have to investigate…
I’m a grad student and appreciate any dinners that can be thrown in a pot and done for me. I made just a few adjustments to the ingredients based on my supplies – instead of 6 c chicken broth, I used 3 1/2 of chicken stock (just what I happened to have in the fridge already) and added a beer ;) Can’t wait to impress my roommates!! Thanks Ali!
Thanks for sharing with us Kaity — we’re so glad you enjoyed this (and we think the beer is an excellent addition — good thinking)! :D
Just made it for lunch tomorrow. Smells great! I hsed 1tsp chili powder and 2tsp cumin and some frozen onions that i had on hand.
Thanks for sharing Jessica — we hope you enjoyed it!
Hi! I haven’t tried this yet but it looks GREAT! I put it into the myfitnesspal recipe calculator and the serving calorie count came out to over 1,000! That can’t be right, right?!
Hi Jennifer! Wow, that sounds extremely high. We aren’t sure of the nutrition facts/calories for this recipe, and the reason why we don’t include this info for our recipes is the nutrition calculators available are not 100% accurate. We usually refer people to MyFitnessPal, but this really sounds incredibly high, so we honestly don’t see how that can be accurate. Did you type in the entire recipe? Maybe it calculated the total calories for the whole recipe, rather than each individual serving.
Just made tonight for dinner. I took someone else’s suggestion for using the pressure cooker. It was a Bomb! My husband kept saying “this is good, this is really good, this is really really good.
Thank you for a recipe that is for sure a keeper.
Awww we’re so glad to hear that Mitzi — thanks for sharing with us! :D
I make this all the time! I love this recipe!!
Thanks Jill — we’re so glad you’re a fan! :D
Super easy and yummy.. I liked it but would reduce the broth next time or add another can of beans as it was more soupy than chili. Pretty spicy for kids that don’t like heat.
We’re glad you enjoyed it Michele, and we appreciate your feedback!
This is so deliciously amazing! I make it every.single.week. It’s just so easy, so inexpensive, and so tasty, it’s become a real favorite with my family. Our 3 year old loves it, too! I make it to a T every time in the crock pot. We use finely diced red onions, cilantro, and avocado for toppings and tortillas for sopping up the deliciousness at the bottom of the bowl. Thank you for this recipe!
Thank you for sharing JoMarie — we’re so glad to hear that! :D