You Can Totally Make Marry Me Chicken Into Marry Me Soup

Since its creation in 2016, Marry Me Chicken has entered countless people's recipe books, and the delicious dish became one of America's favorite at-home meals of 2022. However, given the chicken-centric recipe's relatively short existence, we have only fairly recently started experimenting with unique modifications to the dish. One tasty variation is Marry Me Soup, a new take on the dish that could give you an even greater appreciation for Lindsay Funston's ingenious creation — if you make it correctly, of course. So we at The Takeout asked for some pointers on making Marry Me Soup from recipe blogger and cookbook writer Jessica Merchant, who runs How Sweet Eats.

Merchant told us that transforming Marry Me Chicken — "a chicken dish with a creamy sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, lots of garlic, and fresh basil" — into Marry Me Soup is not too difficult of a task to accomplish. "Dice some sun-dried tomatoes and cook them with onions and garlic," she said. "Deglaze the pan with a dry white wine. Add in some shredded chicken, chicken stock and, at the end, a bit of cream. Lots of fresh basil, too." You could always use a good grocery store rotisserie chicken as a handy shortcut.

With the help of some extra chicken stock, cream, and white wine for deglazing, you can effectively turn the already delicious Marry Me Chicken into a creamy soup that will hit just right and can stand toe-to-toe with any of your favorite winter soup recipes. However, Jessica Merchant, who is also the author of "Easy Everyday: 100 Recipes and Meal Prep Ideas for Effortless Eats," noted that it's easy to adapt Marry Me Soup so it's even more suited to your tastes. 

"You could easily add in diced carrots and celery to the base, then at the end, stir in fresh kale or spinach," Merchant suggested. "A tiny cut of pasta like ditalini could also be added in." As an alternative to ditalini, you could try fregola pasta or orzo. Finish it with some parmesan for extra umami depth.

Furthermore, if you want a vegetarian version of the Marry Me Soup and aren't interested in using a plant-based chicken substitute, Merchant advised using more filling ingredients in the dish instead. "Lose the chicken and add a heartier pasta, like cheese or spinach tortellini," she said. "Mushrooms would also be a delicious addition." You could also switch the cream for coconut milk, the chicken stock for vegetable broth, and add in some chickpeas for a protein boost.