Chicken and Wild Rice Soup with Acorn Squash. This soup is delicious. I crave it all the time. It’s also healthy, hearty and flavorful. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it, but there’s more…it’s also super easy to make, and fast to pull together, using leftovers from dinner.
When I make this soup, I almost always make Easy Roasted Chicken with Acorn Squash Salad and Wild Rice for dinner.
I make sure to cook an extra chicken breast, I double the rice and I peel and cube an extra squash, toss it with olive oil and roast it, on the same pan, right along side the squash wedges.
Now you don’t have to cook Easy Roasted Chicken with Acorn Squash Salad and Wild Rice for dinner, but you will need 1 cup of cooked chicken, 1 cup of cooked rice and 1 cup of roasted cubed squash.
You could use chicken from your BBQ last night, or poach one instead, or you could roast one chicken breast on the same pan as a cubed acorn squash and then cook some rice to get what you need.
For me using leftovers from dinner means a soup that comes together in minutes, with very little hands on time.
Sometimes I refrigerate the leftovers from the chicken dinner and I make this soup for dinner along with some bakery bread, a night or two after the chicken dinner.
Sometimes I make the soup right after dinner and we eat it for lunch the next day or the day after that. And sometimes I do both. Either way I get a delicious homemade healthy meal, with very little effort, which in my books is always a good thing:)
1 onion, diced
1 stalk of celery, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups cooked wild rice
1 cup shredded cooked chicken breast
1 cup roasted cubed acorn squash
Pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
-Gather ingredients and tools. Prep ingredients (dice onion, slice celery and mince garlic).
-Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large heavy bottomed pot over medium heat. Add onions, celery, garlic, salt, basil, parsley, paprika, pepper and cook until onion is softened, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.
-Add chicken stock, cooked wild rice, shredded cooked chicken and roasted cubed acorn squash.
-Bring to a simmer and simmer 10 -15 minutes, until heated through and flavours have developed. Taste and season with more salt if needed, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Serve in bowls or mugs and top with freshly chopped parsley, if desired.I usually make Easy Roasted Chicken with Acorn Squash Salad and Wild Rice for dinner and then use the leftovers to make this soup.
I make sure to cook an extra chicken breast, I double the rice and I peel and cube an extra squash, toss it with olive oil and roast it, on the same pan, right along side the squash wedges.
