Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

This is one of those soups that is guaranteed to warm you up from the inside out during the frigid temps the whole country is experiencing right now. We’re using some store bought rotisserie chicken, some fresh veggies, and some wild rice then transforming them into a hearty and delicious bowl of goodness.

Since this soup started as a mushroom soup in my mind, I made a simple mushroom stock to use as some of the liquid in our soup. It’s as simple as boiling some water, adding some dried shiitake mushrooms, and letting them steep for about an hour to infuse the water with their umami goodness. While this step adds a little extra depth to the final product, you can absolutely double up on the chicken stock, and this soup will be just as incredible.

While our mushroom stock is brewing, we can get started on the base of our soup. We need a little olive oil, some baby bella mushrooms, some celery, a little onion, and some carrots. We’re going to give them a little time to sauté in a skillet until they start to soften and lightly caramelize. Then, we’ll add in a little garlic for extra pizazz. And once the garlic is fragrant, we’ll deglaze our pan with some white wine.

After the wine has cooked off of the veggies, we’ll add a little flour to help thicken up the overall texture of our soup. From there, we add in our mushroom stock, some chicken stock, and a couple cups of store bought rotisserie chicken that’s been diced into bite sized pieced. We’re also going to add in some special herbs and seasonings to really amp of the flavor of this soup: some fresh thyme, some fresh rosemary, and some umami seasoning.

Now those of you that have been around here for a while know that I do not enjoy shopping at Trader Joes. But, I’ll trek out there for some of this umami seasoning. Once upon a time, you could only find this special seasoning at TJ’s. But recently, versions are starting to pop up in places like Aldi, Target, and even Amazon. So it’s so much more accessible, and it adds important flavor to this soup. Umami seasoning is typically made of dried mushrooms, red and black pepper, mustard seed, and dried onion. And, those are the exact savory notes that we want to use to impart flavor in this soup.

After our soup has had a couple minutes to simmer, we’re going to pull out those fresh herbs and toss in some prepared wild rice. At this point, we’re also going to stir in some evaporated milk to make our soup nice and creamy. I love using evaporated milk in soups, because the water content has been taken out of the milk making it less likely to break. So instead of having soups with visible dairy separation (especially with re-heated leftovers), our soup stays nice and creamy for a couple of days.

When it’s time to chow down, our tastebuds are in for a treat. There are so many layers of flavor and texture happening here. We have that savory mushroom flavor at the base of the soup. Then, we have woody and herby notes from the rosemary and thyme infusion of the soup. And, you can’t forget the classic aroma of the rotisserie chicken plus chicken stock rounding out this soup. Plus, we get little pops of veggies in our mouth along with the chew from the rice. And, this whole bowl is quite the experience.

And though it seems like a laundry list of ingredients, we really didn’t put a whole lot of effort into this soup. Just a little patience!

Alrighty, folks! We might have to take a trip to the tropics soon to warm our souls like this soup warms our bellies. So, stay tuned!

I hope you all enjoy! And, let’s eat!