Creamy wonderful chicken wild rice soup with a kick! New Mexico Hatch green chile livens up the flavor of the classic Midwest chicken wild rice soup. Nutty wild rice from Minnesota, celery, carrots, and onion bathe in a super rich and creamy chicken broth with plenty of good chicken chunks floating about. With the addition of that touch of spice from green chile, this soup is MY idea of heaven.
I’m a Midwestern girl by birth, but for a while I lived in New Mexico and I totally fell in love with the cuisine there. I’ve since returned to my roots, but part of my heart still lives in the Southwest desert. The apparent brown of the scenery is misleading … the desert has its own world of color and an enchantment that haunts you. The food in New Mexico is like nothing you’ll find anywhere else. Their “specialty” is green chile and they put it in EVERYTHING. Living there, I got totally addicted to it, craved it, and started to find myself more and more willing to try just about ANYTHING with green chile in it. Green chile cheeseburgers, green chile chicken soup, and yes, even green chile fudge? Oh man, yes!
Green chile chicken soup is one of the quintessential New Mexican soups and it’s widely available. I HAD to have it whenever I got sick. It always made me feel better … the mix of a creamy broth (which is my favorite kind of soup to start with) with chunks of chicken and spicy green chile was a must-have. This Southwestern classic never failed to soothe my soul and loosen up the congestion. I ALWAYS felt better after a bowl of green chile chicken soup. I’ve got to say: I was a chile wimp when I arrived, but by the time I left New Mexico, I was a total chile head. The hotter the better, in my book!
The great thing about this soup is that it takes one of my childhood favorites and marries it with one of my adult obsessions. Chicken wild rice soup was a treat growing up. We didn’t often have wild rice–it was too expensive for every day, so we had it for holiday meals. And when we had leftover wild rice, then we could make soup! I’m ecstatic that wild rice doesn’t have to be just for holidays anymore. I have enough to enjoy it whenever I want, and frankly I’m surprised that I haven’t been eating it more because I had some real Minnesota wild rice (not the cultivated kind, the truly wild kind, harvested by hand) in my pantry for years.
What is wild rice?
Wild rice is not actually rice at all. It is the seed of an aquatic grass (similar to rice) that grows naturally in shallow freshwater marshes, streams and lakes. Originally grown and harvested by Native Americans, wild rice is a nutritious grain with an earthy, nutty flavor and slightly chewy texture.
Wild rice is lower in calories and higher in nutrients than brown or white rice. Wild rice boasts impressive amounts of several nutrients, including protein, antioxidants, manganese, phosphorus, magnesium, and zinc. Eating wild rice has been shown to improve heart health (in animal studies) and may also lower your risk of type 2 diabetes, so it’s a food I can enjoy guilt-free, knowing I’m feeding my body something that not only tastes good, it FEELS good.
If you’re a fan of wild rice and/or green chile, you’ll love this soup. If you’ve never tried wild rice or green chile, then you are in for a treat, my friends.
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Green Chile Chicken Wild Rice Soup
- Prep Time: 15 min
- Cook Time: 20 min
- Total Time: 35 min
- Yield: 7 servings 1x
- Category: Soup
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil or grass-fed butter
- 2 – 4 cloves garlic, peeled & chopped
- 1 medium onion, peeled & chopped
- 3 stalks celery, chopped (save the leaves!)
- 6 Tablespoons garbanzo bean flour
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 oz. Greek cream cheese or Neufchatel
- 3/4 cup milk (or half & half)
- 1 1/2 cups chopped leftover cooked chicken (or turkey)
- 1 1/2 cups cooked wild rice
- 1/4 cup frozen, thawed roasted Hatch green chile (or 1 4-oz. can)
- Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Heat a soup pot over medium heat. Add the olive oil, garlic, onion and celery and saute until the onions are soft and translucent. Add the carrots and cook a few minutes longer, then stir in the flour to coat the veggies.
- Add the chicken broth and bay leaf. Cook for 10 – 15 minutes, until the mixture is thickened. Add the cream cheese in small chunks, stirring until it is fully melted and the broth is creamy.
- Stir in the chicken, wild rice and milk, then add the green chile and salt & pepper to taste. Cook until hot, then remove the bay leaf. Serve hot, garnished with fresh parsley or chopped fresh celery leaves if desired.
Notes
You can adjust the spiciness of the soup by choosing mild or hot green chile. Canned green chile is typically very mild.
All purpose, whole wheat or tapioca flour can be substituted for the garbanzo bean flour (also known as chickpea flour).
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Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 228
- Fiber: 1.5
- Protein: 18.4
Keywords: Wild rice, Chicken, Green Chile, Soup, Southwest, Midwest
1 comment
I could eat a big bowl of your soup. Love soup.