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.
This soup is delicious!! My fiancé and I both loved it, it’s gonna go in our weekly rotation for sure. I used almond milk instead of whole milk and it still came out creamy and rich! The only other thing I did differently was add in some italian seasoning.
I’m so happy to read this! Thank you for your positive feedback!
Thank you.
This soup is great- creamy, rich, savory- I used whole milk and cauliflower instead of potatoes. I added a jalapeno (with seeds) to give it some kick. If you’re sick and looking for nutritious, comfort food I’d leave it as it is, but if you’re up for it (I’m Texan) add some heat with jalapeno or red pepper flakes.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for the wonderful review!
Really, really good soup! Instead of milk, I used 1/2 cup of arborio rice and 1 cup of wild rice. The arborio rice really did a great job of thickening up the soup.… Almost like a thin risotto consistency. 😋
I’m so glad you enjoy this chicken wild rice soup so much.
This was so good! My husband had three bowl fulls for dinner tonight and kept telling me how much he loved it. I did some slight modifications:
1. I bought a rotisserie chicken and plopped the whole thing in the pot with the veggies, potatoes and veggie broth (I also make my chicken noodle soup this way).
2. After 20 mins I took the rotisserie chicken out and put the rice in. I use Royal Blend rice from Kroger. Then I use my immersion blender and add the chicken meat in. I always save the carcass, put it in a separate pot with carrots, celery, onion and boil lid on for a few hours to make homemade chicken broth to freeze for future soups.
3. I use one can of Lite Coconut Milk instead of whole milk.
Amazing! Adding it to my favorite recipes on Pinterest!
Thanks for sharing, Nicole!
Mine was dark brown using the instant pot. Looked like black bean soup and didn’t get very thick at all. Anyone else make it in the instant pot? I used the regular wild rice.
Just to confirm you cooked the full 25 minutes in Instant Pot with a 10 min wait then quick release, when undercooked wild rice swells rather than ‘pops’ open slightly to reveal it’s more white interior. For thickness, you will need to use an immersion blender to blend it to desired consistency (or you can remove a small amount to blender, blend, then stir back in soup).
Oleana,
We love your recipes. I am confused on the timing of the instapot.
On the chicken and rice the initial time is 7 minutes on the creamy chicken rice soup it’s 25 minutes. Both have raw chicken basically the same ingredients except for the kind of rice and potatoes.
Since hard as I tried I could not get wild rice except black rice or a blend.
So I decided to make Chicken and Rice soup with the wild rice blend. Although I did put a potato in.
I am now making the Chicken Rice soup in the process now. I set the instapot for 10 minutes on pressure cooker high. 7 minutes in the instruction seemed so low and 10 minutes does too. I understand on the 15 minutes as it deceases it will still be cooking.
What to do ?
Thank you for your help.
JETTA
Wild rice and brown rice need different cook times in soups. Raw chicken can be cooked in 7 mins and in 25 mins in soup. It takes a while for liquids to come to pressure and release it too – everything keeps cooking then too. I am not sure how I can help further except to suggest to follow the recipes, that’s how I tested them. 🙂
Hi Oleana,
After 3 tries I was able to get a wild rice ( sigh ) Blend. The two prior times Amazon kept sending me black rice. I was very clear in my online order. We are ( healthy ) locked down.
I have two questions:
What recommendations/ recipes for black rice do you suggest?
The Creamy Chicken Soup is what I have been trying to make since I first saw the recipe posted. Will Wild rice blend work, the pkg lists the following:
Long grain Brown Rice, Sweet Brown Rice, Wild Rice ( hmmm )” Wheani Red Rice “ and my friend Black Rice.
Does not sound feasible to do without becoming mushy.
I will be so happy when life returns to normal and we can shop and see what I am buying.
My husband and I love your recipes .
Thank you so much for your reply.
JETTA
You can use black rice following brown rice instructions and recipes. Wild rice will work in that soup however all other rice except wild rice will become mushy, yes. I would make Instant Pot chicken and rice and Jambalaya with either of your rice. Any of my recipes that call for brown rice except the soup. Hope this helps!
Hey! If I don’t want to use an immersion blender, do I just add the remaining ingredients and serve?
You got it.
Hi, Olena!
I’m cooking the soup right now so can’t rate it just yet, but I had a few questions.
In the end of the article you mention an option to freeze all of the ingredients for a “fast meal”. Do you wash the rice before you freeze it or right before you use it? Also, do you parboil veggies or just freeze it fresh? I never end up freezing prep meals because it’s so much extra work to parboil veggies.. I would like to know your opinion on this. Thank you!
Yes, I wash the rice and raw veggies. I never parboil veggies, Instant Pot and slow cooker cooks them after.
Hi, I can’t find wild rice in my store and I’m wondering if black rice would work? I have brown rice on hand as well. Thanks in advance!
Technically it will work but both black and brown rice will be more mushy and fall apart. Wild rice holds its shape well, that’s the only difference.
Thanks for the quick reply! I ended up taking a risk with he black rice and it was delicious! It actually held its shape perfectly. I did stove top for 45 minutes and it was perfect. Even today the leftovers are not mushy at all. I found the texture of the black rice to be very similar to wild rice. It did however turn my soup purple. Haha
Thanks for taking the time to let me know how it turned out Sheena! I am glad it was delicious (even though it turned purple, haha).
I made this! I don’t usually have time to leave comments but I had to. It’s really really really very good! It makes a LOT! I loved loved it! I used rotisserie chicken (easier), so used chicken broth (less sodium), also omitted the mushrooms for those who don’t like them. It was perfect in the slow cooler and perfect reheated and perfect shared. Thank you!
Jacque! I so appreciate that you took the time to share how much you enjoyed the soup! Thank you 🙂