Now that the weather is a bit cooler, I have been craving lots of hearty soups. Just last week I made a creamy Slow Cooker Chicken Tortellini Soup. It was the perfect one-pot wonder to kick off the fall season.

This Slow Cooker Chicken Parmesan Soup is more waist-friendly than the tortellini soup, but is still packed with flavor. Chicken Parmigiana is usually made by baking breaded chicken with cheese and tomato sauce. It’s delicious, but quite a heavy dish. Diced tomatoes and slow cooked chicken replace the heavy tomato sauce and fried chicken in this soup.

My biggest tip for this recipe is to use a really good Parmesan cheese. Buying Parmesan cheese with a nice, strong flavor will make this soup just that much better.

I also always grate lots of fresh Parmesan over the bowls just before serving. I just can’t get enough.

If you prefer stuffed pasta like tortellini, feel free to substitute it for the shell pasta. For slow cooker dishes like this, I usually just use whatever ingredients I can find in the pantry. For example, I always have a variety of dry pastas and diced tomato flavors. For this particular recipe, I used Italian Style diced tomatoes, but the other varieties should work just as well. Sometimes it’s nice to add a chipotle or roasted pepper flavor to your soup!

Next time, I may even add beans and vegetables to the soup and serve it alongside some crusty bread and wine.

This soup also freezes well to make wonderful leftovers. However, if I don’t freeze it right away, the leftovers disappear quickly in the fridge.

That’s okay with me though. It’s the sign of a good dish.