Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Oh my goodness, this was delicious.  I haven’t written in forever.  This is due to many reasons, one of which is that I just haven’t been all that inspired.  Life has been very hectic, so we haven’t been testing out as many new recipes.  The ones that we’ve had recently that seemed worth writing about were ones that I had already written about!  One of the great things about this blog is that I can easily go back and find recipes that we loved and make them again.

 

Tonight, I wanted to try something new, I was in the mood to cook!  I went to allrecipes.com and the recipe for Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup was the main recipe on the front page.  It had 5 stars with almost 500 reviews, so I figured it must be good.  The ingredients seemed simple enough and it sounded tasty.

 

Well, it wasn’t just tasty, it was super delicious.  I already can’t wait for lunch tomorrow so that I can fill up all over again on the leftovers.    Below is the recipe, in italics is what I did differently.  Many of these changes are ones that I read in the reviews for the recipe.

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)

• 4 cups chicken broth (I added 2 extra because I used a lot of chicken)
• 2 cups water (I added an extra 3/4 cup to balance out the extra broth)
• 2 cooked, boneless chicken breast halves, shredded (We had a huge pack, so we used 3 large breasts, which I simmered in chicken broth to cook before shredding)
• 1 (4.5 ounce) package quick cooking long grain and wild rice with seasoning packet  (I used Uncle Bens 6 oz box)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 cups heavy cream (I used 1 cup heavy cream and 1 cup skim milk)
• 1 carrot, thinly sliced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 8 oz fresh mushrooms

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large pot over medium heat, combine broth, water and chicken. Bring just to boiling, then stir in rice, reserving seasoning packet. Cover and remove from heat.
2. Saute garlic, onion, carrots and mushrooms until tender.  Add to broth mixture just before removing it from the heat.
3. In a small bowl, combine salt, pepper and flour. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in contents of seasoning packet until mixture is bubbly. Reduce heat to low, then stir in flour mixture by tablespoons, to form a roux. Whisk in cream/milk mixture, a little at a time, until fully incorporated and smooth. Cook until thickened, 5 minutes.
4. Stir cream mixture into broth and rice. Cook over medium heat until heated through, 10 to 15 minutes.

Even though I added more liquid, I didn’t add more flour because it was thickened due to the extra vegetables.  While it was finishing cooking, I wasn’t sure it would be thick enough, but once I removed it from the heat and let it cool a bit it thickend up just perfectly.

This was fairly simple and well worth the little effort it did take. This was such a good soup, definitely going into my favorites!  We served it with a Caesar salad.