Skip to main content
Weeknight Cooking

Dinner Tonight: Lemon Chicken and Orzo Soup

By Published Dec. 10, 2018

Sign up for our weekly newsletter, "Dinner Tonight." Each Monday, we feature a fresh, super simple 30-minute recipe, and deliver a shopping list to your inbox. Sign up now.

What’s the best way to remove meat from a rotisserie chicken?

We love rotisserie chickens, not necessarily to just eat straight but to use as an ingredient in a quick soup or pasta. You get deep roasty flavor without having to roast a bird yourself.

Granted, not every grocery store has a great product, but many do. If yours does not, shop around a little. As a shortcut to a satisfying supper, you can’t beat it.

Here’s how to get the most meat off that chicken with the least amount of mess.

  1. Remove legs.
  2. Separate thighs and drumsticks and remove skin.
  3. Pull out tendons in drumsticks; peel off meat.
  4. Peel meat from thighs; discard gristle.
  5. Remove skin from breasts.
  6. Pull out wishbone. (Don’t skip this step.) It may come out in 2 pieces. 
  7. Remove both sides of breast meat (each side should come off in 1 piece).
  8. Flip bird over and pick off back meat.

KITCHEN TIP: Shred or chop the meat to the size you’d like it. Then, wrap up the leftover bones and freeze them for the next time you make stock. (What about the wings, you say? Those are the cook’s treat. Nosh away while you make your soup.)

Recipe

Lemon Chicken and Orzo Soup

We use fresh lemon juice, chives, and sprigs of thyme to create this bright dish from leftover chicken.
Get the Recipe
Equipment Review

All-Purpose Whisks

A whisk is a whisk is a whisk, right? Nope.
Read Our Review

This is a members' feature.