This homemade chicken and rice soup is my secret trick to turning leftover chicken and rice into a delicious second meal! Comes together in under an hour from start to finish.
Can we talk about something? It’s February AKA the time of year where most people quit their diets and forgo their new years exercise resolutions. So, of course, I have thus decided to now begin mine with this homemade chicken and rice soup. I just unpacked my box of skinny clothes and after the painful realization that I would not be going out in public wearing them, I am so ready for this!
I have recently come to the realization that I have an obnoxious tendency to try to buck the editorial calendar trends. I know, I know…..in the first week of January I should post green smoothies and not my grandma’s cinnamon rolls. I know that I should have posted some kind of cheesy drippy Superbowl fare last week. I know. But sometimes? When I read through my feed reader from all the popular blogs I follow I feel this rebellious streak rise up in me and I just. can’t. do. it.
So 6 weeks late, after eating for 3 days straight at Food Blog South and then spending a full week of preparing to move and traveling cross country I’m finally ready. We have had a super busy first week back home in Oregon and it was my turn to cook dinner today. My turn? It feels so weird (and totally awesome) to realize that I don’t have to cook dinner every night anymore. We are staying with Kevin’s extremely gracious parents while we get our feet under us here again which means I only cook dinner a few nights a week. Yes.
I personally love commune living. It just makes logical sense to me to spread the workload of a household over multiple families or multiple generations. This homemade chicken and rice soup was just the ticket for today. It has been snowing all day and I wanted something warm and comforting without having to run to the store.
Shhh…don’t tell anyone I made soup out of a bunch of leftovers. But if you haven’t mastered this skill you definitely should because almost any leftovers can be made into awesome soup. And when you are trying to decide if you really can stomach the same leftovers for the 3rd time, all the sudden soup starts sounding awesome.
This particular soup is light and flavorful, but still warm and oh so satisfying. A finely diced baked potato breaks down super quickly and provides the thickening but if you are fresh out of those you can add in some instant mashed potato flakes to help thicken the broth or just.
Adding in fresh vegetables to your soup base definitely livens up the leftovers, we had some beautiful multi-colored sweet peppers that added a lovely pop of flavor and color to really make this soup come together.
The fresh cilantro worked fabulously with all the flavors and the only thing we have left longing for was a few quarters of lime to squeeze over it. It paired beautifully with a fruity IPA, but a Corona with lime or a nice light sparkly white wine would also work lovely.
For more recipes; Easy Chicken Stir Fry, Bagged Salad Chicken Salad Pitas, Skillet Chicken, and Dumplings.
Happy soup making!
Homemade Chicken and Rice Soup Recipe
This homemade chicken and rice soup is my secret trick to turning leftover chicken and rice into a delicious second meal! Comes together in under an hour from start to finish.
Ingredients
- 6 1/2 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup shredded chicken
- 2 cups brown rice
- 1 medium baked potato small dice
- 4-6 medium sweet peppers diced
- Serve With:
- cilantro minced
- lime wedges
- crusty bread or muffins
Instructions
- 1. Combine all ingredients and allow to simmer 30 min to up to 1 hour (fine after 30 minutes but will thicken up more the longer you cook).2. Dried potato flakes can be used to thicken faster if desired.3. Serve hot with cilantro, lime, and bread. Enjoy!
Finally! A way to use canned potatoes with crunch*
I made this with some leftover (brown rice and Rice-a-roni). I added a can of sliced potatoes. (I always end up with them but never know what to do).
I also added a whole diced onion.
*and now for the secret crunch ingredient…Sliced Water Chestnuts.
Or you could add celery towards end.
Mine turned out more like a casserole/thick soup but I could just add more water if I needed to. My kettle was yielding so much I held back on adding more water.
tried clicking for 5 stars but it won’t register. so here’s 5 stars * * * * *
This looks like my kind of food!
What an awesome soup! Love that you can use leftovers with it!
This looks great and I’d like to try it, but in a crockpot… However I’m new to using my crockpot. So forgive me for asking silly questions, but if I do put it in the crockpot, should I use uncooked rice and potato? And how long on Hi or Lo? Thanks 🙂
Hi Chenoa!
I would recommend putting everything in the slow cooker for 2-3 hours on low. But there really isn’t a reason to make this a slow cooker recipe, it’s made in 30 minutes. If you cook the cooked chicken and cooked rice all day it will be a mushy overcooked mess. There are other chicken and rice slow cooker recipes out there I’m sure that would start from raw but I’ve not tested it that way at all so really can’t advise accurately for a conversion. Hope that helps!
Dani
This is a fabulous looking soup. I love how rich and hearty it is!
Does this soup freeze well?
Hey Liz,
I haven’t tested it on this recipe but I would assume it would be just fine from my experience with other soups. I would use brown rice versus white if possible because it tends to hold up better to freezing.
Definitely give it a try and let us know how it goes for you!
Thanks for the comment!
Dani
testing
What a great way to clean the fridge out and have warm comforting food when it’s chilly out! Gorgeous looking soup!!!
This ma be a silly question, or not, but should the rice be pre-cooked before combining it with the other ingredients??
Thanks!
Hey Laura,
Not silly at all! I did have pre-cooked rice as it was leftovers which worked great. I would say that if you are starting it early like in a crockpot or to simmer for more than 2 hours that starting with raw rice would lend a less mushy end result. 🙂
This soup looks so, so good! I am going to pin it to make it in the future. Yum-o!
Also, I was giggling when I read how you should post healthy foods in January, cheesy foods for Superbowl, etc. I’ve never even thought of that when I post recipes! I always just post what I’ve made recently and was enjoyable. Here’s to being recipe blogging rebels!
We should start a club haha!
LOVE THIS! Looks fabulous, girl! Just pinned for later! 🙂
Thanks Sandy! I love the way it turned out too….the light was so perfect that on that super snowy day 🙂