Slow Cooker Chicken Rice Soup

Slow Cooker Chicken and Rice Soup is an easy chicken soup recipe. All of the raw ingredients go in the slow cooker and a delicious soup awaits for dinner.

Course: Soup
Servings: 8
Ingredients 
3 chicken breasts, trimmed of fat and cut in half
1 cup brown rice
1 small onion, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 tsp salt
pepper to taste
2 tsp parsley
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp sage
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp butter, optional
9 cups chicken broth

Instructions
Place all ingredients in order in a slow cooker, except rice.
Cook on low for 4 hours. The rice absorbs the liquid and gets white and puffy. If you prefer the brown rice to maintain a more firm shape and texture, add it after 2 hours of cooking.
Thirty minutes before serving, remove the chicken from slow cooker and shred or cut into cubes.
Return chicken to the slow cooker, cook for thirty more minutes, and serve.

Alternate method
We've had some complaints about the rice being too mushy in the soup. The rice does absorb the liquid and becomes soft. You can see this in the recipe photo. I think it takes on the texture of a cooked pasta, which I think is good. The chicken, broth, vegetables, and spices in this soup are all delicious and cook beautifully in the slow cooker. If you are concerned about the rice, omit it from the slow cooker and stir in 2 to 3 cups cooked rice (brown, white, or wild) to the soup before you serve it.


Slow Cooker 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!
The rice does absorb the liquid of the soup and become soft, almost like a pasta.  If you prefer the rice to be firm and don’t want to babysit it in the slow cooker, stir 2-3 cups cooked rice (brown, white, or wild) 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.
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.
Serve this soup with a crusty bread or dinner roll.  It is especially good with our Breadtwists!