This Chicken Wild Rice Soup is deliciously rich and creamy soup without the use of heavy cream or flour. You can make this healthy and budget-friendly comfort food on the stovetop, crockpot or Instant Pot.
We also love this Instant Pot chicken wild rice soup, Instant Pot chicken and rice soup and marry me chicken soup.
This healthy chicken wild rice soup is loaded with fall apart shredded chicken, tender carrots, potatoes, celery, and of course, wild rice simmering in a creamy broth that is exploding with crazy flavor!
After realizing how quick and easy it is to make this healthy soup in just over an hour, you’ll never want to go back to Panera again!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Easy: While it may need a bit of simmering time, this soup requires minimum chopping and all steps are very easy to follow.
- Delicious: Lots of flavor from the earthy mushrooms, veggies, aromatics and seasonings. Not to mention everyone loves anything creamy!
- Healthier: No heavy cream is used to make this chicken wild rice soup.
- One pot meal: Anytime I can make dinner in one pot with easy clean up, it’s a win!
- Freezer and meal-prep friendly: Prep soup ahead of time and freeze until you’re ready to cook it. Portion any leftovers and enjoy for lunches throughout the week.
Ingredients for Healthy Chicken Wild Rice Soup
- Chicken: Any chicken works whether it’s raw, bone-in and skin-on or boneless and skinless. Examples would be chicken breasts, chicken thighs or chicken drumsticks. Also cut up whole chicken is great.
- Dried mushrooms: If you don’t have dried mushrooms, use fresh brown mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms or white mushrooms.
- Vegetables: Onion, garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes.
- Wild rice: Wild rice has a very unique taste and texture and I don’t recommend to replace it with any other rice.
- Milk: Whole milk is the best replacement for heavy cream.
- Liquid: Water or low sodium chicken broth or Instant Pot chicken broth.
- Seasoning: Dried thyme, mustard, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Try poultry seasoning or rosemary instead of thyme.
- Garnish: Parsley to give it a nice herbaceous finish.
- Butter: Used for sauteing the vegetables and adds a creamy layer of flavor.
How to Make Healthy Chicken Wild Rice Soup
- Saute vegetables with spices. Melt butter in a large heavy bottom pot and add onion and garlic to saute. Add veggies and seasoning and continue to saute for 5 more minutes.
- Add remaining ingredients: Add chicken, potatoes, wild rice, water, or broth.
- Cook: Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 55 minutes or until rice and potatoes are tender.
- Shred chicken: Place chicken onto plate and shred with 2 forks and set aside.
- Make it creamy: Whisk in the milk and prepared mustard and blend with an immersion blender a bit. Or leave it as is.
- Final step: Add shredded chicken back in as well as a handful of chopped parsley. Enjoy!
Tips for Best Results
- Don’t replace the wild rice: Unfortunately, white or brown rice will become overly mushy in this recipe. If that’s all you have, make this turkey and rice soup (use chicken) or Instant Pot chicken and rice soup instead. Or some readers have had luck with cooking rice separately and then stirring it in at the end.
- If you don’t have an immersion blender: Blend a small amount in your blender, then stir back into soup. Do this in batches until desired soup consistency is reached.
- Adjust consistency: This soup will thicken over time. Adding 7 cups of liquid is great if you want a thick soup right away. Adding 8-9 cups is good if you plan to consume the soup a couple hours later as it will become thicker by then. You can always adjust the soup next day with more broth.
Variations
- Cooked chicken: If you have any leftover cooked cubed or shredded chicken you can use that instead. Add after cooking and use chicken broth and not water for cooking the soup as you will skip cooking the chicken.
- Dairy free: Try coconut milk for the same creamy result. Or you can use any nut or oat milk but the flavor will change.
- Additional vegetables: Add some diced sweet potato, butternut squash or small broccoli florets before cooking, or chopped spinach or kale after the blending step.
- Slow cooker: Saute the vegetables and spices. Add chicken, potatoes, wild rice, water or broth in a large slow cooker. And cook on Low for 8-10 hours or on High for 5-6 hours.
- Instant Pot: Throw all of the ingredients into the Instant Pot and cook for 25 minutes on High pressure.
How to Make a Freezer Meal
Do you like to plan ahead for busy weeknights or days when you don’t feel like cooking? Turn this chicken wild rice soup recipe into a freezer meal and have it ready when you are!
- Instant Pot: In a large Ziploc bag, add all of the ingredients except water, milk, and parsley. Seal and freeze for up to 3 months. Cook from frozen with 7 cups water or chicken broth on High pressure for 25 minutes, wait 10 minutes, and release remaining pressure.
- Slow cooker: In a large Ziploc bag, add all of the ingredients except water, milk, and parsley. Seal and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge for 24 hours and then cook on Low for 10 hours or on High for 6 hours with the recommended amount of water or broth. You can skip cooking the veggies before adding them to the bag. Either way, the soup is going to be delish.
- After cooking: Remove the chicken and shred it with 2 forks. Blend the soup a bit with an immersion blender until desired consistency. Add chicken back in with the parsley. Stir and serve hot.
Serving Recommendations
This soup doesn’t need much else except for a basket of crusty bread like Greek yogurt bread or cottage cheese bread, or low carb almond flour bread for sopping up that delicious broth.
An appetizer is always a nice addition to get things going, especially if you’re serving company. Try Parmesan mushrooms, baked zucchini fritters, or garlic hummus with fresh veggies or crackers.
How to Store and Reheat
Store: Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Freeze: Freeze chicken and wild rice soup leftovers in a glass container for up to 3 months.
Reheat: Thaw in the fridge overnight or on the counter for 4 hours. Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes on the stove top.
FAQs
A blend usually comes with brown or white rice, which both have different cooking times, and different levels of starch. While a wild rice blend is great for many things, for this recipe in particular, I’d say “no”.
As stated above, the soup will thicken over time. If you’re in a hurry to eat it and it’s not as thick as you’d like, you could also make a cornstarch slurry to thicken it quickly.
Yes. If you are OK with adding heavy cream to your soup, then by all means do that.
Yes. Saute the veggies with spices and store them in an airtight container for up to 2 days. You can also chop the potatoes and keep them refrigerated in a bowl of cold water. When you’re ready to make the soup, combine with remaining ingredients and cook as per instructions.
More Chicken Recipes to Try
- Healthy chicken and rice casserole
- Healthy chicken noodle soup
- Instant Pot chicken and rice
- Chicken noodle vegetable soup
- Slow cooker chicken noodle soup
- Healthy white chicken chili
- Instant Pot white chicken chili
- Crock pot chicken and rice
Healthy Chicken Wild Rice Soup
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1.5 pounds any raw chicken pieces
- 1 large onion finely chopped
- 2 large garlic cloves minced
- 2 large carrots coarsely chopped
- 3 large celery stalks diced
- 2 large potatoes diced
- 1/2 cup dried mushrooms or 2 cups fresh brown mushrooms sliced
- 1 1/2 cups wild rice
- 7 cups water or chicken broth low sodium
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme dried
- 1 tablespoon prepared mustard
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
- Ground black pepper to taste
- 2 cups whole milk
- Small bunch parsley finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon butter for stovetop only
Instructions
Stovetop
- Preheat large heavy bottom pot or Dutch oven on medium heat, add butter and wait until it has melted. Add onion and garlic; saute for 3-4 minutes.
- Add carrots, celery, fresh mushrooms (if using), thyme, garlic powder, salt and pepper; saute for 5 minutes.
- Add chicken, potatoes, dried mushrooms (if not using fresh), wild rice, water/broth.
- Cover, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for about 55 minutes.
Slow Cooker
- Preheat medium skillet on medium-high heat, add butter and wait until it has melted. Add onion and garlic; saute for 3-4 minutes.
- Add carrots, celery, fresh mushrooms (if using), thyme, garlic powder, salt and pepper; saute for 5 minutes.
- Transfer to a large slow cooker along with chicken, potatoes, dried mushrooms (if not using fresh), wild rice and water/broth. Cover and cook on Low for 8-10 hours or on High for 5-6 hours.
Instant Pot
- In Instant Pot, add chicken, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes, mushrooms, wild rice, water/broth, thyme, mustard, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Cover, set pressure valve to Sealing and press Pressure Cook on High or Manual for 25 minutes. After wait for 10 minutes and do Quick Release to release the pressure by turning the valve to Venting.
After cooking (for all versions)
- Remove chicken onto plate and shred with 2 forks.
- To the pot, add milk and mustard. Using an immersion blender give a few pulses until soup is desired thickness (don’t forget to stir and feel free to adjust thickness with extra water and spices).
- Add shredded chicken and parsley, stir well.
- Serve hot with crusty bread for dipping.
Video
Notes
- Store: Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 5 days. Reheat in a small pot covered while simmering on low.
- Freeze: Freeze soup leftovers in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Thaw in fridge overnight or counter top for 4 hours.
- Raw chicken: I used chicken breasts in the stovetop and drumsticks in the slow cooker version. Any chicken works – raw, bone in/skin on or boneless/skinless or even cut up whole chicken.
- Wild rice: Wild rice has a very unique taste that makes this soup so delicious. Unfortunately, white or brown rice can not be substituted in this recipe.
- Instant Pot: In a large Ziploc bag, add all ingredients except water, milk and parsley. Seal and freeze for up to 3 months. Cook from frozen with 7 cups water or broth on High pressure for 25 minutes, wait 10 minutes and release remaining pressure.
- Slow cooker: In a large Ziploc bag, add all ingredients except water, milk and parsley. Seal and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge for 24 hours and then cook on Low for 10 hours or on High for 6 hours. You can skip sauteing or saute veggies before adding to a bag. Either way soup is gonna be delish.
- After cooking: Remove chicken and shred with 2 forks. Blend a bit with an immersion blender until desired consistency. Add chicken and parsley. Stir and serve hot.
I have precooked wild rice in the freezer. How many cups of cooked wild rice and how to adjust recipe using precooked wild rice?
I would use 4 cups cooked rice and reduce broth to 4 cups and go from there.
I was skeptical of this as it seemed too simple to be delicious – but I was wrong! I did end up adding a few seasonings of my own, which helped kick it up from being a little bland otherwise, but the creaminess factor was astounding given that there is no cream! I used Fairlife whole milk to boost the protein content. No immersion blender for me, so ate as is. I prefer having the textures in my soup. I will be making this again.
So happy to hear you gave this healthy chicken wild rice soup a go!!!
Just made this soup this week. It was absolutely the best soup I have ever made or had! It will definitely be one I make all the time. I used my immersion blender at the end, and I definitely recommend doing so, it thickened the soup and made it a very hearty meal with a slice of crusty bread!! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe!
I’m so happy to read this! Thanks for your positive feedback!
Is the wild rice pre cooked?
No.
What do I do if I don’t have an immersion blender?
You can just blend some amount of liquid with rice in a regular blender and return it to the pot. Or mash it up with a potato masher in a bowl and return to the pot.
Do we cut up the chicken before putting in pot for stovetop version? Or shred after cooking for the 55 minutes? Thanks!
You cook chicken breast while. There are process photos in the post and detailed recipe card at the bottom of the post. Enjoy!
Just made this delicious soup today, creamy texture and mix of veggies was a warm, tasty lunch with a slice of bread!
Thank you
That sounds perfect for the end of summer and coming fall days!
Yikes! What did I do wrong! Made it as a freezer meal and put into instant pot. It was D-lockouts BUT all of the rice exploded in there!! So it looked like mush, but it tasted great! Next time maybe I’ll do the slow cooker instead? Any thoughts??
The key is not to overcook. So probably cook time was too long. Cook for less next time. Slow cooker overcooks rice easily as well. I would just try less 5 minutes pressure cooking time.
So tasty! My whole family loved this. Thanks for this new favorite soup! 🙂
I’m so happy to read this! Thanks for your positive feedback!