This creamy chicken & corn soup is lightened up, but still has a wonderfully rich and hearty texture with its thyme-infused base. You prepare some ingredients on the stove before transferring it, plus others, to the slow cooker. You’ll love the comforting and satisfying blend of hearty chicken, root vegetables, creamy-style corn, and savory bacon.
Creamy Chicken & Corn Soup Details
- Texture: This creamy chicken soup has plenty of hearty, satisfying texture from chicken and sweet potatoes. You’ll also enjoy plenty of corn in each spoonful. All of these wonderful chunks of vegetables and chicken sit in a light creamy broth made from chicken broth, whole milk, and cornstarch.
- Flavor: We love a flavor-packed dish and this creamy chicken & corn soup recipe delivers big. You’ll enjoy smoky bacon, cream-style corn, sweet potatoes, savory thyme, plus plenty of black pepper all stewed together in the slow cooker. The soup is a celebration of sweet, savory, and creamy flavors and finished with a lift of fresh parsley.
- Ease: The soup begins with browning bacon and then moves on to soup-starter basics like onions, garlic, carrots, and celery. These are cooked on the stove, but that’s the only “work” you’ll have to do. You then throw everything else right into the slow cooker except for the milk and cornstarch (see recipe directions below). Are you cooking this during the day while you’re at work? You can prep the veggies on the stove the night before.
- Time: This is a slow-cooked soup that takes about 8 hours.
This is a soup recipe that requires little effort, yet delivers so much flavor. If this appeals to you (little prep, big results!), you’ll also appreciate our minestrone soup and slow cooker chicken chili recipes.
Choosing the Right Ingredients
- Bacon: While you certainly could skip the bacon if needed, you’d miss out on a lot of the soup’s outstanding flavor.
- Celery, carrots, onion, and sweet potatoes: These vegetables add flavor, bulk, and texture.
- Thyme: With its subtle hints of earthy floral notes, thyme is an essential flavor enhancer in this soup.
- Whole milk: To keep things on the lighter side, we use and recommend 1 and 1/2 cups of whole milk, but you could easily replace it with half-and-half for a thicker soup. You could also combine 1 cup whole milk with 1/2 cup heavy cream.
- Cornstarch: It’s used as a thickener here, so do not skip this ingredient.
Overview: How to Make Creamy Chicken & Corn Soup in the Slow Cooker
The full printable recipe is below, but let’s walk through it so you understand each step before you get started.
- Cook the bacon. Let it cool, then crumble or chop into pieces.
- Cook garlic and vegetables. In the same large skillet used to cook the bacon, fry the garlic and vegetables in the bacon grease for 5 minutes until tender.
- Combine ingredients in the slow cooker. Place bacon, vegetables, and the remaining ingredients (except for the cornstarch and milk) in the slow cooker, then stir and cover. Set it on low heat for 6-7 hours.
- Whisk in cornstarch and milk. Cook for another 1 hour.
- Add garnish. Sprinkle with parsley and any leftover crumbled bacon before serving.
More Slow Cooker Recipes
- Honey Teriyaki Chicken
- Slow Cooker Chicken Chili Recipe
- Turkey Meatballs
- Slow Cooker Hot Chocolate
- Taco Spice Chili
Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken & Corn Soup
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 7 hours, 30 minutes
- Total Time: 8 hours
- Yield: 12 cups
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: American
Description
Slow cooker chicken corn chowder is a satisfying and easy crockpot dinner the whole family will love. Quick to prep and full of flavor!
Ingredients
- 4 strips bacon
- 2 large carrots, peeled and thinly sliced (a little over 1 cup)
- 2–3 celery stalks, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)
- 1/2 medium yellow onion, diced (about 3/4 cup)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 (14 ounce) can cream-style corn
- 2 (14 ounce) cans corn, drained (or use about 3 cups frozen)
- 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed (or regular potatoes)
- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
- 5 cups (1200ml) chicken broth (I use reduced sodium)
- 1 Tablespoon fresh thyme
- 2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) whole milk
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- optional: fresh (or dried) parsley for garnish
Instructions
- Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until browned on both sides. (Keep grease in skillet.) Place strips on a paper-towel lined plate and allow to cool. Once cool enough to handle, crumble or chop into tiny bits and pieces.
- Add the carrots, celery, onions, and garlic to the skillet. Stir and cook the vegetables in the bacon grease over medium heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Set aside.
- Place the creamed corn, corn, sweet potatoes, chicken, chicken broth, thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper into a 5 quart or larger slow cooker. Add the celery/carrot/onions and the crumbled bacon (save some for garnish if desired). Stir together, cover with the lid, and cook on low heat for about 6-7 hours.
- At the 6-7 hour mark, whisk the cornstarch and milk together. Pour in the soup. Stir together, then cover. Cook 1 more hour. Serve warm with a sprinkle of parsley and/or any leftover bacon crumbles.
- Leftovers keep well in the refrigerator for 1 week. To reheat, simply pour into a pot over medium heat and cook until warm. Soup freezes well up to 3 months.
Notes
- No Slow Cooker? No Problem. Prepare recipe through step 2. Instead of placing ingredients into a slow cooker in step 3, place into a large pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Stir together, then allow to boil and cook until chicken is no longer pink, about 30 minutes. Turn the heat down to low, stir in the whole milk and cornstarch, then simmer for 10 minutes. Serve.
Keywords: chicken corn chowder, slow cooker chowder
I loved this recipe!! After that, I made your iced oatmeal cookies. You are my “go-to” chef!! Didn’t change a thing in either recipe. Made chowder on stove. *****
★★★★★
Amazing soup! I followed the ingredients exactly. I chose to make it in my dutch oven on the stove – only thing I did differently was I cut the chicken breast up in small bites, and I waited to add that once the veggies were pretty much done – the chicken cooks pretty quickly and stayed tender. Added the milk/cornstarch and cooked for maybe 10 more minutes. More freshly ground black pepper and a little flakey sea salt to finish, and served with some crusty bread. So good!!
★★★★★
My new fave soup except I used rotisserie chicken and heavy whipping cream so I added the chicken at the same time as the cream. Sally, Thank you for such an excellent website! Your recipes are top-notch!
★★★★★
Delicious and easy. Makes enough to feed a crowd!!!
★★★★★
Hi Mat, you can certainly use heavy cream for a richer soup if you prefer.
This recipe was great. I didnt have enough chicken stock so I added some water and white wine (Chardonnay) and it gave it a nice buttery flavor. Also added some diced green chillies and a pepper flake blend. This is a definite keeper and just what we needed. Thank you!
★★★★★
Hi Sally! I love this recipe and totally want to make it this week- but all I have are boneless chicken thighs in my fridge! Think they would dry out in this crockpot recipe? Should I switch to the stovetop for thighs? Or just cook them for less time in the crockpot? Any advice would be super helpful, thank you!!!
★★★★★
Hi Jessica! You can definitely make this with boneless chicken thighs instead– follow the recipe as instructed. No changes needed. Cut the thighs into cubes and add to the slow cooker in step 3.
This is one of my favorite soup recipes! My husband appreciates the bacon addition 🙂
Very hearty and satisfying, I’ve made this soup several times and will be making it for years to come!!
★★★★★
I have lactose intolerance do you have any suggestions for a substitute for cows milk?
Thanks.
Unsweetened (and unflavored) nondairy milk is a fine substitute. Let me know how you like it!
Made this and the huzz and I loved it!!! My only tip is to make sure you cut the sweet potatoes smaller than I did because they were still on the hard side. I froze this meal and defrosted/reboiled it before eating it again and that fixed it perfectly.
My husband always tells me he makes the best corn chowder but now he says this is the best one…even though he typically despises celery, he did not mind it in this soup 🙂
Made this for supper tonight. It was fantastic! Served it with a nice crusty French bread. Thinking it would be great with sausage as well!
Hi Sally, really looking forward to trying this recipe! Can you tell me if whole milk is necessary for the creaminess of the soup? I typically just have 2% milk on hand.
I do recommend whole milk, if you use 2% just note that it will not be as thick or creamy.
Do you think it is possible to cook this recipe for a shorter time on high?
On high for 4 hours would work!
I just made this recipe last night, and it was delicious! My fiance was a big fan. I used a mixture of half and half and the corn starch as well as water (I was out of milk and didn’t have all of the half and half I needed). You could not tell a bit of difference. I also used dried thyme instead of fresh. I think it would be difficult to make this recipe not taste good! I’m already looking forward to eating this again tonight with some crusty bread..yum!
I made this for dinner last night and it was soooo good! The only change I made was using dried thyme instead of fresh and giving it a few pulses with my immersion blender. I’m very much looking forward to leftovers for lunch today and will be stashing some in the freezer (since it made so much) to pull out over the next couple of months. Thanks f or another great dinner recipe! 🙂
Made this last Friday and it had so many good flavors. My husband and I had it for lunch and supper for about three days in a row! Thanks for such a delicious recipe.
This was delicious! I thought I had bacon, but unfortunately I didn’t. I used italian sausage in replacement, and it turned out great – although next time I’m definately trying bacon! Thanks for another great crock-pot recipe 🙂
Thanks for this great recipe Sally! I was using your salted caramel Rollo cookie recipe for Thanksgiving, (which I’ve been doing for years now!) and I decided to look at your savory recipes too. So glad I tried this one–I followed it exactly and it turned out amazing! I loved it, and more importantly so did my family. Thank you!
This. Was. So. Good. Thanks again for another amazing recipe! I also made your “Slow Cooker Chicken Chili” and we loved that as well! Looking forward to trying some more of your recipes.
It is cold and snowing here in MI today and this seemed like the perfect day to make this soup. I have to confess that I ate enough of this soup to sustain 6 people for weeks!!!! Absolutely delicious Sally!!! I could eat this everyday of my life!!! Thank you so much for this great recipe.
This soup is wonderful! Makes me want to make my grandmothers chicken noodle! Perfect for this rainy day, its gross in manhattan today
Hi Sally! I was thinking this soup would help me use some leftover turkey we have from a Friendsgiving this past weekend, but would I put the cooked turkey in the slow cooker from the start or maybe put it in with the milk/cornstarch mixture? Thanks!
That’s a great idea– and you could do it either way. I’d say from the very beginning. You wouldn’t need to cook the soup for as long since the meat is already cooked. I’d say 4-5 hours on low, then add the milk mixture.
Is there any way of substituting the bacon. I love corn chowder and the chicken in it sounds wonderful.
You can simply leave it out 🙂 Cook the veggies in 2 Tablespoons of butter or 1 Tbsp olive oil.