Chicken Pesto Soup

Chicken Pesto Soup has all the comfort food appeal that makes chicken soup such a popular dish, plus extra flavor from pesto and lemon juice! And you can make this tasty soup with chicken and pesto in the Instant Pot or on the stove!

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Chicken Pesto Soup is a recipe I came up with when I was experimenting with chicken and rice soup using cauliflower rice! But I know people like chicken and pesto, because this casserole recipe is one of the most popular dinners on my site, and I guess sub-consciously the popularity of that might have influenced the decision to add pesto to this tasty soup.

And adding some pesto and lemon juice to chicken soup really made it soup a wow for me. I made Chicken Pesto Soup in the Instant Pot, but I’ll give instructions for making it on the stove if you prefer.

What ingredients do you need for this recipe?

(This is only a list of ingredients; please scroll down for complete printable recipe. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE link at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe with ingredient amounts.)

• onion
• carrot
• celery
• butter
• Italian Herb Seasoning (affiliate link)
• Dried Sage (affiliate link)
• Dried Thyme, preferably ground thyme (affiliate link)
• salt and fresh ground black pepper
• chicken broth or homemade chicken stock
• Better than Bouillon Roasted Chicken Base, or other chicken base (affiliate link)
• boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• frozen cauliflower rice
• Basil Pesto with Lemon or purchased basil pesto
• fresh squeezed or fresh-frozen lemon juice

How low in carbs is the Chicken Pesto Soup?

This tasty soup recipe only has 5 net carbs and 22 grams of protein per serving!

What pesto did I use for Chicken Pesto Soup?

I would definitely use my Basil Pesto with Lemon for this recipe if I had some in the fridge or freezer, but when I don’t have homemade pesto I love the Kirkland Basil Pesto (affiliate link) that’s sold at Costco or on Amazon.com.

How to soup with pesto and keep the Instant Pot clean:

This is a simple recipe, but I want to give you one caution: Be sure to turn off the heat when you stir the pesto into the hot soup. If you add pesto and let the soup sit with the Instant Pot still turned on, you’ll have melted cheese from the pesto on the bottom of your Instant Pot that will be a pain to scrub off. (I learned that the hard way, although it didn’t stop me from really enjoying the soup!) Another option to keep the Instant Pot as clean as possible is stirring some pesto into each bowl of soup as you serve it

Love your Instant Pot?

I use a 6 Quart Instant Pot for all my recipes made in the Instant Pot. Check out my growing collection of Instant Pot Recipes! You can find lots more Slow Cooker / Instant Pot Recipes on my Slow Cooker or Pressure Cooker site.

How to make Chicken Pesto Soup:

(This is only a summary of the steps for the recipe; please scroll down for complete printable recipe. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE link at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe.)

1. Take cauliflower rice out of the freezer and let it start to thaw.
2. Trim chicken breasts and cut lengthwise.
3. Finely chop onion, celery, and carrots. 
4. Turn Instant Pot to SAUTE, HIGH HEAT, and melt butter; then add onion, carrots, and celery and cook 2-3 minutes.
5. Add Italian Herb Seasoning, sage, ground thyme, salt, and fresh-ground black pepper and cook a minute more.
6. Add chicken broth or stock, chicken breast strips, and soup base. 
7. Lock the lid and set Instant Pot to MANUAL, HIGH, 6 minutes.
8. Let Instant Pot natural release 10 minutes; then release the rest of the pressure.
9. Remove cooked chicken pieces to cutting board.
10. Turn Instant Pot to SAUTE, LOW and add frozen cauliflower rice.
11. While cauliflower rice cooks, shred chicken apart. 
12. After cauliflower rice has cooked about 5 minutes, add shredded chicken to the soup and cook about 3 minutes more.
13. Turn off the Instant Pot and stir in basil pesto and lemon juice.
14. Serve right away and enjoy! We served this with more Parmesan cheese to add at the table.
15. See the complete recipe below to find stovetop instructions for Chicken Pesto Soup.

More Low-Carb Instant Pot Soups:

• Instant Pot Pumpkin Soup 
• Instant Pot Zuppa Toscana Soup
• Instant Pot Loaded Cauliflower Soup

Continue to Content

Print

Yield: 8 servings

Chicken Pesto Soup

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 6 minutes

Additional Time 30 minutes

Total Time 51 minutes

This Chicken Pesto Soup is a delicious comforting chicken soup that's kicked up a notch with the addition of basil pesto and lemon juice at the end.

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 small carrots, chopped
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 T butter
• 1 tsp. Italian Herb Seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. ground sage
• 1/2 tsp. ground thyme (see notes)
• salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
• 8 cups chicken broth (see notes)
• 3 T chicken soup base
• 4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 10.5 oz. package frozen cauliflower rice (see notes)
• 1/4 cup basil pesto (see notes)
• 2 T fresh-squeezed lemon juice (see notes)

Instructions

Instant Pot Instructions:

1. Take cauliflower rice out of the freezer and let it start to thaw on the counter. (I used a 10.5 oz. package which was 2.5 cups of cauliflower rice.)
2. Trim chicken breasts and cut lengthwise into 2 or 3 strips each.
3. Finely chop onion, celery, and carrots. (You can use less carrot if you'd like to reduce the carbs even more.)
4. Turn Instant Pot to SAUTE, HIGH HEAT, and melt the butter. Then add the chopped onion, carrots, and celery and cook a couple of minutes.
5. Add Italian Herb Seasoning, sage, ground thyme, salt, and fresh-ground black pepper and cook a minute more.
6. Add chicken broth or stock, chicken breast strips, and soup base.
7. Lock the lid and set Instant Pot to MANUAL, HIGH, 6 minutes.
8. When time is up, let the Instant Pot natural release for 10 minutes; then carefully open the valve and release the rest of the pressure.
9. Remove cooked chicken pieces to a cutting board.
10. Turn Instant Pot to SAUTE, LOW and add the frozen cauliflower rice.
11. While cauliflower rice cooks, shred chicken apart.
12. After cauliflower rice has cooked at least 5 minutes, add shredded chicken to the soup and cook about 3 minutes more.
13. Turn off the Instant Pot and stir in basil pesto and lemon juice.
14. Serve right away and enjoy! We served this with more Parmesan cheese to add at the table.

Stovetop Instructions:

1. Thaw cauliflower rice, prepare vegetables, and prepare chicken same as above.
2. You will need at least another 1/2 cup chicken broth or stock for stovetop cooking.
3. Melt butter in a large soup pot and saute onion, carrots, and celery for a few minutes.
4. Then add Italian Herb Seasoning, sage, thyme, salt, and fresh-ground black pepper and cook a few minutes more.
5. Add chicken broth or stock, chicken breast strips, and soup base to the soup pot and turn heat to low.
6. Let soup simmer about 40 minutes on low, or until chicken is firm.
7. Remove chicken to cutting board and add cauliflower rice. Cook about 15 minutes more on low.
8. Shred chicken apart and add to soup pot when the cauliflower rice is done. Cook about 5 minutes more to be sure chicken is heated through.
9. Turn off heat, stir in basil pesto and lemon juice, and serve.

Notes

You can use dried thyme leaves, but they float on the top of the soup when it's done so I prefer to use ground thyme for soup. You can grind the thyme in a Mortar and Pestle (affiliate link) if you have one.

If you have homemade chicken stock that will be delicious in this soup. If you use canned chicken broth, 8 cups is 4.5 cans. If you're cooking on the stove use the whole 5 cans. I use Better than Bouillon Roasted Chicken Base (affiliate link), but any chicken soup base you like the flavor of will work.

The 10.5 oz. package of frozen cauliflower rice was 2.5 cups; you could use a bit more if you prefer a thicker soup. Use more or less pesto and lemon juice to taste. If I had some of my Basil Pesto with Lemon in the freezer I'd definitely use that for the soup, but purchased basil pesto will also be delicious. I used my fresh-frozen lemon juice lemon juice.

Recipe created by Kalyn and perfected for the Instant Pot with help from Kara.

Nutrition Information

Yield

8

Serving Size

1
Amount Per Serving Calories 191Total Fat 8gSaturated Fat 2gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 5gCholesterol 62mgSodium 1188mgCarbohydrates 7gFiber 2gSugar 3gProtein 22g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated by the Recipe Plug-In I am using. I am not a nutritionist and cannot guarantee 100% accuracy, since many variables affect those calculations.

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Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
Chicken Pesto Soup is a good dinner option for any low-glycemic or low-carb diet, including Keto or any phase of the original South Beach Diet.

Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use Instant Pot Recipes to find more soups like this one. Use the Diet Type Index to find more recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You might also like to follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest, on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, or on YouTube to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there.

Historical Notes for this Recipe:
This tasty soup with chicken and pesto was first posted in 2021. The recipe was last updated with more information in 2025.

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