Slow Cooker Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

No ratings yet

Slow Cooker Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

This slow cooker chicken and wild rice soup is flavourful and hearty. The chicken can be substituted with left-over holiday turkey. This soup is great on cold winter days.

Prep Time15

Cook Time6 5

Total Time6 20

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: chicken soup, crockpot, slow cooker, wild rice soup

Servings: people

Calories: 514kcal

Author: Meals by Mavis

Ingredients

1 lb chicken (or turkey; raw or cooked)
⅔ cup wild rice
2 medium carrots (washed, peeled and diced)
3 stalks celery (washed and diced)
1 medium onion (washed and chopped)
2 cloves garlic (washed and minced)
½ tbsp canola oil
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp black pepper
6½ cups chicken broth
¼ lb cremini mushrooms (wash, thinly slice then cut each slice in half)
½ cup half and half cream
salt (to taste)

Instructions

Heat the oil in a frying pan with the stove on medium heat. Sauté the onions and garlic until the onions are translucent (about 1 minute).
Pour the cooked onion and garlic mixture into the slow cooker.
Add all the other ingredients (minus the mushrooms, cream and salt) to the slow cooker. Use a spoon to mix everything together. If you're using cooked chicken or turkey, don't add it just yet (see notes below).
Cover the slow cooker with the lid. Set the temperature indicator on the slow cooker to low and the timer to 6 hours; You can set the timer to 7 hours if you like soup to be very tender.
Add the mushrooms to the soup about 3 hours before the soup is ready to be done.
Remove the chicken from the soup about 2 hours before the soup is done. Place the chicken on a cutting board and let it cool for 20 minutes; letting the chicken rest before you shred/cut it will help to retain the moisture.
After 20 minutes, use a knife and fork to shred/cut the chicken into smaller pieces. Pour the shredded chicken into the soup and discard any skin or bones that was removed from the chicken.
Add the cream to the soup when you add the chicken back into the soup. To prevent the temperature of the soup from dropping too low, I like to heat the cream in a small saucepan on the stove before I add it to the soup.
Use a spoon to mix everything in the soup together. Place the lid back on the slow cooker and let the soup cook for the remaining time.
Taste the soup once it’s done; the internal temperature of the chicken should be 165 ˚F. Add salt to the soup, if you think it requires more salt; I usually add ½ tsp of salt to the soup.
Remove the bay leaves from the soup and discard them. Serve the soup with crusty bread, if desired.

Notes

If you're using cooked chicken or turkey, cut it into smaller pieces and add it when you add the mushrooms.
You can also heat up the cooked chicken or turkey and add it once the soup is done cooking; this might be the best option for people who don't like how poultry turns out in slow cookers.
If you're using cooked chicken or turkey with bones, remove the bones from the meat and put the bones into the slow cooker at the beginning. This will add more flavour to the soup. Remove the bones before you add the cream to the soup.
Raw bone-in chicken thighs work better for this soup than raw chicken breasts; they'll come out moister than chicken breasts. If you're using raw chicken breasts, get them with the bone in and the skin on, so it'll be more moist.
Do not use regular rice or even wild rice blend with regular rice. Regular rice will turn to mush if used in this recipe.
You can make this a vegetarian soup by not including the meat and using vegetable instead of chicken broth. Double the mushrooms and decrease the broth to 6 cups, so the soup won’t be too thin.
If you want a thicker soup, you can add 1 tbsp of flour to the cream before you heat up the cream and add it to the soup. However, the soup will thicken if left in the fridge overnight, so don't thicken the soup with flour if you're planning to have left overs.

Nutrition