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Our Chicken and Rice Soup is an easy, delicious meal that’ll fill your house with a comforting aroma. Imagine coming home to tender chicken and fresh herbs that have been simmering for hours. Now that’s chicken soup for the soul!
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This Slow Cooker Chicken and Rice soup is also great for entertaining guests because you can prepare it ahead of time. It’s perfect for those busy days when you need to make something for dinner but don’t have a lot of time to spend on prep work or cooking meals from scratch. It’s truly a fix it and forget it meal that everyone in the family loves. I serve it with some crusty rolls, breadsticks, or my kids’ favorite, cornbread.
Ingredients in Chicken and Rice Soup
- Boneless, skinless, chicken breasts
- Chicken broth
- Parboiled rice, long grain rice, brown rice, or make it a chicken wild rice soup by using wild rice (see recipe notes)
- Butter
- Yellow onion
- Garlic
- Medium carrots
- Celery ribs
- Bay leaf
- Parsley
- Sage
- Rosemary
- Thyme
Seasonings for Chicken and Rice Soup
Isn’t it nostalgic to use fresh parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme all in one recipe? These seasonings complement each other so well. In case you haven’t guessed, I’m a big Simon and Garfunkel fan. My parents listened to their music when I was growing up and I still listen to it today. I love the song Scarborough Fair/Canticle. It was released on their album, “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme”. Scarborough is a town in England and in Medieval times, there was a Fair there that lasted for 45 days! Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme represented virtues that are important to the lyrics of the song. Parsley represented comfort, sage represented strength, rosemary represented love, and thyme represented courage. You can read more about it on songfacts.com.
Health Benefits
Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup and Chicken and Rice Soup are so good for the body and soul, especially when you are feeling under the weather. Studies show that Chicken Soup has properties that soothe cold symptoms like coughs, sore throats, and runny noses. The other veggies in the soup — carrots, celery, onions — also have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits. Dr. Oz posted an interesting article that gives more details about this called “You Wanted to Know: Chicken Soup.”
After learning this, I feel even better knowing the benefits of this meal! It’s a great source of fiber, protein, and calcium. And if you use low sodium broth, you can keep the cholesterol and saturated fat down without sacrificing flavor. So many good things come from the chicken broth itself. And who doesn’t need comfort, strength, love, and courage? I hope all of this comes to you and more when you enjoy this delicious soup!
Chicken and Rice Soup Recipe Tips
- Use fresh seasonings, as mentioned above. Feel free to add more or less depending on your taste. I tend to use a little more because I love the taste of the seasonings in the soup — especially the sage and rosemary. If I have a seasoning that is losing its flavor, I grind it a little between my fingers before adding it to the soup. This will bring out more of the taste and smell.
- If you want the rice to cook at the same rate as the raw chicken breasts, be sure to use parboiled rice (also called converted rice). This is the best rice and cooks beautifully in the Crockpot. If you prefer basmati, brown, white rice, jasmine rice, wild rice, or even quinoa, prepare 1 cup uncooked rice according to the package directions and stir into the soup just before serving.
- If you are watching fat content, you can totally skip the butter. The butter gives a little more richness to the broth, but it is not necessary. The soup will taste just as good without it.
- Keep the Crockpot lid on while soup is cooking. I know it’s tempting, but each time the lid is removed heat escapes and it add to the cooking time.
- This soup thickens when it cools. I love leftovers of this soup because the flavors really come out after it sits for a day or two, but it will be a thicker soup than when you eat it straight from the Slow Cooker. If you prefer a thinner soup, just add some water to it when re-heating to give it the consistency you desire.
- Reheat the soup either on a pot on the stovetop or in the microwave.
- Use rotisserie chicken, chicken thighs, chicken breasts, or any chicken you have on hand for this soup.
- Feel free to toss in any extra veggies you have: broccoli, kale, zucchini, mushrooms, etc.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on what kind of rice you want to use in the soup. Parboiled rice, also called converted rice, cooks beautifully along with the other ingredients in the soup in the slow cooker. If you prefer using brown, white, or wild rice, prepare the rice in a rice cooker or on the stove top and add to the slow cooker just before serving.
Yes! This is Chicken and Rice Soup can easily be made gluten free! Use a gluten free chicken broth, like Swanson’s Chicken Broth, and you are good to go!
Cook the rice separately and add it to the soup just before serving. If you use parboiled, or converted rice, it won’t get soggy.
This does make a big batch of soup, so you may have leftovers. Allow the soup to cool to room temperature, or close to it. Pour the soup into an airtight container and keep it in the fridge for up to a week. Rice doesn’t freeze well, so we don’t recommend storing it in the freezer.
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How to Make Chicken and Rice Soup
Chicken and Rice Soup Recipe
Video
Equipment
- Crock Pot (Slow Cooker)
Ingredients
- 3 chicken breasts, trimmed of fat and cut in half
- 1 cup parboiled rice* (also called converted rice)
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 3 carrots, chopped
- 3 celery stalks, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 teaspoons salt
- pepper to taste
- 2 teaspoons parsley
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon rosemary
- 1/2 teaspoon sage
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tablespoons butter optional
- 9 cups chicken broth
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in order in a slow cooker. See recipe notes if using brown rice or wild rice.
- Cook on low for 4 hours.
- A few minutes before serving, remove the chicken from slow cooker and shred or cut into cubes.
- Return chicken to the slow cooker, and let it cook for 5-10 more minutes before serving.
- Remove bay leaf and serve soup in individual bowls.
Notes
Alternate method for brown or wild rice:
- If you prefer brown rice or wild rice, leave the parboiled rice out of the slow cooker when adding the other ingredients.
- While the soup is cooking in the slow cooker, prepare 1 cup uncooked brown or wild rice according to package directions. Once cooked, this will yield approximately 3 cups of rice.
- Stir the cooked rice into the soup just before serving.
SABUDANA HEALTH BENEFITS:
Sabudana in English is known as sago. it is very beneficial for health. It is white in colour and small in size. it can easily available in the market in nearby places. Its is also very low.
Eating sabudana or sago pearls every day it makes the body strong and healthy. sabudana | sabudana in English | saggubiyyam in English | Health benefits
My daughter made this and it was really good . It had great flavor and a nice soup on a cold winters night !
Wow, this chicken and rice soup is amazing! The process is so easy and the ingredients are all easy to get. I will try making a gluten-free version next time. We definitely love it!
So glad it’s soup season so I can make this recipe again! We love it!
The weather’s getting colder, it just started pouring rain….this is the soup I need for dinner!
Flavor is good but needed a boost, we added Chahuli hot sauce. Also, the celery and carrots did not cook enough. Would saute the veggies first then add to the cooker.
Do you put the parboiled rice in uncooked with the other stuff in the beginning? The video shows it at the end putting it in already cooked
If you are using parboiled rice you put it in at the beginning. In the video they are using regular rice. Hope this helps!
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I’ve been using this recipe for over a year and it’s still a family favorite! I follow your directions except that I skip the butter. I also leave out the rice and make instant white rice a few minutes before it’s ready. Then I just add it to the soup and let it sit for about 10 minutes to soak up some of the flavor. This soup is so good!!!
The first time I made this I used white rice, the 2nd time I used parboiled rice (which I found at Wal-mart) WHAT A DIFFERENCE! This is a great recipe!
Made this with all fresh ingredients used 1/2 chicken breast and 1/2 boneless skinless thighs. Made my rice separately (wild rice) in instapot! This recipe is a keeper for sure and the house smells amazing❣️
After reading the comments I did NOT use rice. I used egg noodles instead. I put them in with about 20 minutes left to cook and my family loved it. This is now a favorite soup in my house that has very picky eaters.
Oh I love the idea of using noodles! I bet that was delicious! Definitely going to try that now, thanks for sharing!
Does this work well with jasmine rice, cooked separately?
Yes, I love Jasmine rice. It will work great when added right before serving. Hope this helps!
This recipe was extremely salty and the thyme was overwhelmingly strong! We ended up draining all the liquid and made a cream base liquid to help balance the herb taste to try to salvage it.
Sorry this didn’t work out for you!
I’m sorry this didn’t turn out for you. I’m surprised your vegetables weren’t cooked. I’ve never had that problem.
Can you use chicken drumsticks instead of chicken breast?
I guess you could if you wanted to remove the drumsticks once they are cooked, and then shred the chicken off of the bone and put the chicken only back in the soup. Be careful not to leave any bone in the soup. Thanks for asking!
Thank you. Would it be still the same cooking time though?
I was craving for soup and I have come across this on Pinterest. It looked easy to make and viola! I have a soup now! Tastes great!
I’ve made this recipe before and it was a huge hit! Last time I used rubbed sage, but it ran out. My husband accidentally bought ground sage. Should I still do the 1/2 tsp or do I use less? I tried to google it, but every cite had different suggestions. Since it’s your recipe what do you suggest? Thanks for sharing your story and this delicious soup.
You can use the same amount (1/2 tsp) and it should be fine! I am so glad you enjoyed this recipe! Thanks for the 5-star rating!!
The song by Simon and Garfield is Scarborough Fair/Canticle. It isn’t Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. That is a phrase from the song. Just saying.
Right, the name of the song is Scarborough Fair/Canticle, but the album title is Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme!
We really loved the flavours in this recipe. Planned to add rice separately at the end of cooking time but forgot to set the clock for the timer on the rice cooker. For a quick solution, I made some penne and added that instead. I also didn’t have chicken on hand so I dumped in some frozen ground turkey. Cooked on low for almost 9 hours, stirring half way through (to break up the ground turkey). I will definitely make this again. I might try using boneless, skinless chicken thighs next time.
Thank you so much for sharing how you made this recipe a success! Sounds like delicious substitutions! Good to know that pasta will work well in it also. Thanks for the 5-stars!
Our family really loved the flavours in this recipe. Planned to add rice separately at the end of cooking time but forgot to set the clock for the timer on the rice cooker. For a quick solution, I made some penne and added that instead. I also didn’t have chicken on hand so I dumped in some frozen ground turkey. Cooked on low for almost 9 hours, stirring half way through (to break up the ground turkey). I will definitely make this again. I might try using boneless, skinless chicken thighs next time.
I loved how easy this recipe was! I did some of my own modification per my preference, but otherwise followed the recipe provided. I just wish that there was nutrition facts listed. Thanks for the great idea!
Hi Haylie– So glad you liked this recipe! We are working on getting nutrition facts on our recipes but with over 1,000 recipes it might take a little while. Hopefully all of our recipes are easy to plug into recipe nutrition calculators. You should be able to get the nutrition facts right away using a tool like Livestrong or any other recipe calculator. Hope this helps!
This recipe doesn’t make any sense because in the “traditional” method it says to add everything except the rice. There is no instruction to cook rice separately, it’s just assumed or you have to read the comments. People that aren’t specific in their recipes and instructions cause other people to waste their time and money trying to make said recipe. I was excited to try this until I saw how lacking the instructions are.
Beth, thank you for pointing out the confusion with this recipe. I have made some revisions to the instructions, and hopefully it is more clear now. I appreciate your willingness to share your frustration so that we could correct the problem. I’m sorry for the inconvenience this caused you.