Slow Cooker Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Ingredients
- 2-3 carrots, small diced (about 3/4 cup)
- 3 stalks celery, small diced (about 3/4 cup)
- 5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 cup wild rice blend or rice/quinoa blend (see note)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning, see note for substitutions
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 pound chicken breasts, about 2 medium
- ¾ cup frozen corn kernels
- 1 cup milk
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Add the carrots, celery, broth, rice, salt, pepper, and seasonings to a 5- or 6-quart slow cooker. Nestle the chicken into the broth mixture, cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 7-8 hours.
- Remove the chicken and chop into small pieces. (If you don't like the texture of chicken cooked too long in the slow cooker, take it out after about 4-5 hours and reserve until later or add it halfway through the cooking time.)
- Whisk together the milk and flour until smooth (use a blender if you really want to minimize lumps). Stir it into the slow cooker, whisking well to combine. Add the chicken and frozen corn; cover and cook on high for another 30 minutes to an hour until the soup is thickened and creamy. You can add more broth a little at a time to thin out the soup if needed (the thickness will depend a lot on the type/brand of rice used).
- Season the soup with additional salt and pepper to taste and serve. The soup will thicken more as it rests off the heat.
Notes
Spices: if you don't have poultry seasoning on hand (Penzey's Spices has my favorite blend), try subbing in 1/2 teaspoon dried sage, 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary (I like to grind up dried rosemary before using in soups so the texture isn't crunchy).
Rice: I use the TruRoots sprouted rice/quinoa blend for this recipe which cooks fairly quickly. If you use brown rice or a wild rice blend, you may need the longer end of cooking time and may need to add more broth at the end (if the rice absorbs more liquid than the rice/quinoa blend), depending on how thick you want the soup.
Milk + Flour Mixture: also, I haven't tried adding the milk/flour mixture at the beginning of cooking time but I think someone should and then report back (sorry to be bossy).
UPDATE: Lauren, in the comments, added the flour/milk mixture at the beginning and said it worked great! Finally, the higher fat the milk (up to half-and-half), the creamier the soup will be.