Bread soup is a simple, hearty soup made by simmering stale or leftover bread in broth until the bread softens and naturally thickens the soup. Add chicken, onion, spinach, and a few simple seasonings, and you have a warm, filling meal that turns ingredients you already have into something worth putting on the table.
And that’s really what I appreciate about this recipe. It uses my pantry soup method that doesn’t require a long list of special ingredients, and you don’t have to make it exactly the same way every time. It’s the kind of meal that lets you look at what you have in the refrigerator, pantry, garden, or freezer and make it work.
Love simple from-scratch soup recipes? So do we! Check out some of our other favorites, like how to make cream of chicken soup, this quick and creamy Instant Pot tomato soup recipe, seasonal asparagus soup recipe (with canning instructions!), Greek lemon chicken and rice soup, and Instant Pot Zuppa Toscana.
Quick Look at This Recipe
- ✅ Recipe Name: Chicken and Spinach Bread Soup
- ✅ Ready In: About 25 minutes
- ✅ Yield: About 4 servings
- ✅ Calories: Approximately 150 calories per serving, depending on the bread, broth, cooking fat, and optional toppings used
- ✅ Tools: Cutting board, knife, large soup pot, wooden spoon or spatula
- ✅ Freezer Friendly: Best enjoyed fresh, although leftovers can be frozen with some texture changes
- ✅ Why You'll Love It: It turns leftover bread, chicken, broth, and vegetables into a quick, filling meal
- ✅ Tip: Keep leftover bread pieces in a freezer bag until you have enough to make a pot of soup
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Watch Me Make Bread Soup
What Makes This Recipe Unique?
- It uses what you already have. If you've taken my Art of Homemade Bread Class, you may not find yourself with much leftover bread! But even in our house, we end up with heels, crusts, or pieces that have gotten a little too dry to enjoy on their own. Stale bread, leftover chicken, broth, and vegetables can become an entirely new meal instead of going to waste.
- It’s quick. With leftover chicken from our best whole roasted chicken recipe and homemade chicken bone broth ready to go, you can have lunch or dinner on the table in very little time.
- It’s flexible. Add carrots, celery, greens, herbs, cheese, or whatever needs to be used up.
- It’s budget-friendly. Instead of looking at stale bread and thinking, "Well, nobody's going to eat that," you can turn it into lunch. Stretching simple ingredients into a nourishing meal is one of those old-fashioned kitchen skills that still makes an awful lot of sense today.
- It’s beginner-friendly. There’s no complicated technique here. If you can chop an onion and stir a pot of soup, you can make bread soup.
⭐ Featured Reader Review
@adaniaan6825 says, “Thank you, Caroline. With my homemade bread and my homegrown veggies, this is now officially my new favorite soup!”
A Little Bread Soup History
I first learned about bread soup while studying Civil War-era recipes.
Historically, versions of bread soup provided a way to turn stale bread and liquid into something filling when ingredients were scarce. Some versions could be as simple as dried bread softened with hot water into a porridge-like meal.
Thankfully, we can make it considerably tastier today.
Bread soups appear in different forms and food traditions. You may see simple bread soups, chicken bread soup, or Italian versions such as pappa al pomodoro, which combines bread and tomatoes.
The basic idea remains wonderfully practical: don't waste the bread.
Homesteading Hack: Keep a bag in your freezer specifically for leftover bread. Add heels, crusts, and other usable pieces as you have them. When the bag fills up, you're ready for bread soup.
Key Ingredients
For a full list of ingredients and measurements, check out the recipe card below.
- Bread: Bread is what thickens this soup and gives it its distinctive texture. Stale bread works especially well because it readily absorbs the broth. Use homemade or store-bought bread, sourdough, gluten-free bread, leftover pizza crust, French bread, or sandwich bread.
- Chicken: Cooked, shredded, or cubed chicken makes the soup much heartier. I like having cooked chicken ready for quick meals like this. You can even portion cooked, shredded chicken into the freezer and pull it out as needed.
- Spinach: Fresh spinach wilts quickly into the hot soup, adding beautiful color and another vegetable without adding much prep time. It's also one of the greens you can grow all year.
- Chicken Broth: Good broth makes an enormous difference because it's responsible for so much of the soup's flavor. I like using homemade chicken bone broth, but beef broth, vegetable broth, or homemade chicken bouillon can work, too.
Bread Soup Recipe Instructions
Step 1: Prepare the Ingredients
Cut your stale bread into cubes. If you've been collecting bread in the freezer, you can pull out what you need for the soup. Shred or cube your cooked chicken, then dice the onion.
Step 2: Sauté the Onion
Place a large pot over medium heat and add one tablespoon of olive oil or your preferred cooking fat.
Add the diced onion and sauté until it's softened and translucent.
If you're adding firm vegetables such as carrots or celery, this is a good time to add them so they have time to soften.
Step 3: Add the Chicken and Spinach
Add the cooked chicken and spinach to the pot.
Stir and allow the spinach to wilt.
Step 4: Add the Broth and Bread
Pour in the chicken broth, then add the bread cubes.
As the bread absorbs the broth, it will begin to soften and break apart. That's exactly what you want. The bread becomes part of the body of the soup and starts thickening everything naturally.
Step 5: Stir and Heat
Stir the soup occasionally, making sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot.
Bring the soup to a boil, then season with salt and black pepper to taste.
Step 6: Serve
Once everything is hot and the bread has softened to your preferred consistency, remove the soup from the heat.
Ladle it into bowls and add Parmesan, cheddar, fresh herbs, red pepper flakes, or another favorite topping.
Tips and Troubleshooting
My bread soup is too thick. What should I do?
Add more broth, a little at a time, until you reach the consistency you like. Bread continues absorbing liquid as it sits, so don't be surprised if leftovers are considerably thicker the next day.
My bread soup is too thin.
Give it another few minutes to cook and soften. You can also add another small handful of bread cubes and let them absorb some of the excess broth.
Can I use fresh bread instead of stale bread?
Yes. Stale bread is especially useful because this recipe gives it another purpose, but fresh bread can still work. Depending on the type of bread, it may soften and break down more quickly.
What if I don't have chicken?
You can still make bread soup. Remember, the simplest versions of bread soup were built around bread and liquid. Use a flavorful broth and add whatever vegetables, herbs, beans, or other suitable ingredients you have available.
Can I make bread soup gluten-free?
Yes. Use your favorite gluten-free bread and make sure your broth and any additional ingredients are gluten-free as well.
The big thing to remember is that this recipe is forgiving. Don't worry about making it look exactly like somebody else's bowl of soup. Taste it. Adjust it. Add a little broth if it needs it.
Good enough is perfect.
Serving Bread Soup
I think bread soup is at its best served steaming hot, right out of the pot, especially on one of those cool days when you want something substantial without spending the whole afternoon in the kitchen.
A generous sprinkle of Parmesan is wonderful on top. Cheddar gives you something richer and creamier, and red pepper flakes add just enough warmth if you like a little heat.
If the garden is producing, add fresh herbs just before serving. A handful of chopped basil or parsley can brighten the whole bowl.
And because this soup already contains bread, chicken, vegetables, and broth, you really don't need to make a complicated meal around it. Put the pot on the table, add whatever toppings you have, and call everyone in.
Simple food can still be very, very good food.
Storage Instructions
Allow leftover bread soup to cool, then transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate promptly. Enjoy refrigerated leftovers within three to four days.
The bread will continue absorbing broth during storage, so the soup will probably be thicker when you come back to it.
That's easy to fix.
Transfer the soup to a saucepan, add a splash or two of broth, and gently reheat it until it's hot throughout and has returned to the consistency you like.
You can also freeze bread soup, although the texture of the bread and spinach may change after thawing. For the best texture, I prefer making the amount we'll eat fresh or within a few days.
The Homestead Kitchen
This recipe for bread soup was featured in issue No.63 of the Homestead Kitchen magazine. This is the magazine we wish we had when we first started homesteading!
I wanted to make healthy, delicious meals from scratch that my family loved, but Better Homes & Gardens didn’t really prepare me for the overwhelming abundance of the seasonal, homesteading life.
What do you do with all those eggs? Those bushels of green beans? That 25-lb bag of wheat berries? Or all that basil?
We started publishing the Homestead Kitchen magazine to give homesteaders an affordable, inspiring read chock-full of the BEST recipes, DIY projects, and tips to make homesteading doable and FUN.
Now, the Homestead Kitchen magazine is available in print! So subscribe today and start enjoying this magazine in the palm of your hand.
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Easy Bread Soup Recipe With Chicken and Spinach
Equipment
- cutting board We love our cutting boards from Virginia Boys Kitchens.
- knife
- Large Soup Pot I love cooking with enameled cast iron for these types of recipes.
- Spoon
Ingredients
- 2 slices bread stale
- ¼ onion diced
- 1 cup chicken cubed or shredded
- 1 cup spinach
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil or butter, lard, etc.
- 1 quart chicken broth Homemade chicken bone broth makes all the difference here.
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Take bread scraps out of the freezer and cube the bread.
- Pull pre-cooked chicken out and shred it.
- Dice a whole onion.
- Place a pot on the stove over medium heat and put 1 Tablespoon of olive oil in the pan.
- Transfer the diced onions to the pot and saute until the onion is translucent.
- Add chicken and spinach to the pot. Let the spinach wilt down slowly.
- Add chicken broth and throw the bread cubes into the soup. The bread will start breaking down and thicken the soup right up.
- While the bread is breaking down, continue occasionally stirring with the spatula so it doesn’t burn on the bottom of the pan.
- Bring to a boil and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Once the soup comes to a boil, take it off the burner and serve. Top it with parmesan or cheddar cheese if desired.
