It's officially soup season! Once the temperature drops, my soup pot is almost always on the stove. Change up your typical chicken noodled soup with a few ingredients resulting in a robust, flavorful, slightly creamy Chicken Rice Soup recipe.

This easy recipe for Chicken Rice Soup is comforting, holds up well, and is a great soup to have around during cold and flu season.

Adding rice to the soup makes it satisfying, plus it reheats beautifully. I like to add lots of garlic and often add in ginger to help battle potential cold and flu season symptoms. Our grandmothers knew what they were doing when it came to natural remedies.

I add in a "secret" ingredient to make the broth in the Chicken Rice Soup recipe more silky and rich. Any guesses??

My friend Maria is a 100% Sicilian Italian. She taught me that adding in a beaten egg or two (or just the yolks, depending on your preference) to thicken some soups makes it better. She is right! That is my new normal when I make any type of chicken soup.

Anyone who knows me knows just how often I use rice in a variety of ways. From a simple bowl of plain rice to salads, sides, and entrees. Rice is am an amazing vehicle for vegetables, sauces, and proteins. You can easily build layers of flavor using rice, something I love to do.

Adding rice to soups and stews helps stretch them and make any soup or stew a more economical recipe.

Table of Contents

How To Make Chicken Rice Soup?

Begin by sweating your aromatics of carrots, onions, garlic, and celery which build the flavor base.
Add in the stock, rice, and seasoning and in about 15-20 minutes your soup is ready.
If you love carrots in your soup, add in sliced or chopped carrots with 15 minutes left to go.
Using leftover chicken or picking up a rotisserie chicken and shredding it makes this recipe quick and easy.

Soup Variations

Adding in a ton of garlic to this soup as well as some ginger paste or chopped ginger gives a nice flavor. Plus their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits cant be beat!
Add in a beaten egg or or two for creaminess with benefits, or leave them out. It's up to you. For this soup I like adding in 2 scrambled yolks.
You can choose to add in additional vegetables to change the flavor of this soup a bit or to stretch it further. Such as green beans cut into 1 inch pieces or even peppers.
Swap chicken broth for vegetable broth for a slightly different flavor.
Change up the verity of rice to wild rice, plain white rice or whichever rice you have on-hand.

Tips

I add in 1 large beaten egg ( or two egg yolks) to this soup to make the broth silky and a little thicker.
Rice helps naturally thicken soup recipes.
You can also carefully take about ½ cup of the warm broth from the pot out and place it in a small bowl or glass measure cup and whisk in a scant ½ tablespoon of cornstarch. Then return that mixture back to the soup pot, stir it in and bring the soup back to a simmer for a minute or two.

How To Make Creamy Chicken Rice Chicken Rice Soup recipe

Can I Freeze Chicken Rice Soup?

I am not a fan of freezing soups with rice (or noodles for that matter), it tends to get mushy. That is just my opinion. You can, however, freeze the soup base (with stock, etc.) and add rice (or noodles) after you thaw it.

If you enjoy soup as much as I do, try my Black Bean Soup or my go-to Tomato Detox Soup or our family favorite Tortellini and Spinach Soup which takes just 15 minutes to make and is so full of flavor!

Picky kids? Have them make this super-simple kid-friendly Chicken Noodle Soup recipe.

Enjoy! XO- Colleen

Originally published November, 2019. Updated January 2023.