Lemon chicken wild rice soup

Easy to make, filling and super tasty, this soup is made with chicken and wild rice and flavoured with lemon. It’s a perfect soup recipe to make if you have any leftover roasted chicken or you can use a fresh chicken meat too.

Why make this recipe?

• Easy to make
• High in protein & other nutritions
• Dairy Free, Gluten Free
• Can be made with leftover roasted chicken.

Pro tip

Don’t worry about measuring out the ingredients exactly. If you have only handful of rice left or don’t have a wild rice, use what you havet. There is no need to run out to the shops to get more.

This goes for the chicken too – use fresh or leftover baked chicken legs, whatever you have in your fridge.

The only thing you need to keep is the volume of the water/vegetable broth. I’d found that about 300 mil (about 1 1/3 cup ) is a good portion for one person.

INGREDIENTS

300-500 grams chicken either fresh or leftover roasted chicken

1 onion

2 carrots

100 grams wild rice

1,5 litre water

2 cubes vegetable stock

1 tablespoon butter

1 garlic clove

1 teaspoon thyme

1 lemon

1 celery roughly chopped

2 bay leaves

handful fresh parsley

salt and pepper to taste

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MORE RICE RECIPES

• Leftover Pork Fried Rice >>

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Saving tip

This recipe includes making your own chicken or vegetable broth, whilst cooking the fresh chicken at the same time. If you are using a leftover chicken or chicken that’s already cooked or baked, you can skip this step completely.

Use stock cubes (either chicken, turkey or vegetable cubes) instead of making your own broth. Add the chicken in at the end of the simmering time, just to warm through. You will need the longest cooking time for the wild rice and carrots.

INSTRUCTIONS

If using fresh (uncooked) chicken, chop the chicken into smaller pieces (it will cook quicker) first.

In a large saucepan or soup stock pot, add the water, vegetable or chicken stock cubes, celery and any bits of the onions and carrots you won’t be using in the main part of the recipe.

Season the stock pot with salt and pepper and add thyme and bay leaves.

Add the chicken and bring the whole stock to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until chicken is cooked though. Depending on the size of the chicken this might take about 20 minutes.

Take out the chicken pieces and cut the up or shred with scissors into even smaller pieces.

Pour the chicken stock through a fine sieve and throw away the vegetables and bay leaves. Keep the broth

In another large pot, heat up some butter and add the onions, carrots, garlic and sautee until the onion is see through and the carrots soften. This might take about 5-7 minutes.

Add the chicken pieces, rice and pour the prepared chicken stock in.

Bring to the boil again, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes, depending on what type of wild rice you are using (check individual packages for timings).

When the rice is cooked through, add a juice of one lemon and add more salt and pepper if needed.

Serve in a deep bowls topped up with fresh parsley and slices of lemon.

Serving size & can I scale up or down this recipe?

This recipe is for 4 people, but you are welcome to half the recipe or double it based on how many people you are cooking for.

Can this recipe be made in advance?

Yes, this soup keeps well, although the rice can get soggy if left in for too long.

How to store this recipe – any leftovers

To keep this soup fresh, it’s best to freeze it if you can’t finish the soup on the same day. You an also store it in the fridge, but the vegetables and rice won’t taste as crispy the next day as they are when you’ve just made it.

Although you could freeze the chicken and rice soup following my steps for freezing potato soup, the rice does go slightly soggy when it’s defrosted and re-heated. If you are fine with it then it’s absolutely O.K to freeze this soup.

How to re-heat this soup

Simply heat it up again on a stove if you are heating up large amount or heat up one bowl at a time if you need just one portion.