Delicious and warming Thai flavours add such a nice hint of spice to this easy slow cooker chicken and rice soup. Fantastic slow cooker recipe for busy people.
If you love Thai flavours in soups, take a look at our Thai Noodle Soup.
Thai Chicken Soup
I believe chicken soup and cold weather come hand in hand for many of us. There is something so comforting and satisfying about slurping delicious and warm liquids on chilly days.
I am a fan of classic chicken soup recipes like this Chicken and Dumpling Soup I grew up on but once in a while I love to spice things up. By which I mean, I love adding new flavours to the tried and true classics.
Chicken and rice soup is probably something you remember eating as a child. I know I do but I wanted to breathe a new life into the old favourite.
Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
In order to reinvent it, I added Thai flavours to the usual ingredients you’d find in a chicken and rice soup like onions, celery, chicken stock, etc.
The first thing I changed is I replaced white rice with wild rice simply because I love the flavour and texture so much!
I wasn’t sure about the specifics but one thing I knew for certain, my chicken and wild rice soup needed to be made in a slow cooker as wild rice takes ages to cook!
To infuse this soup with Thai flavours I added a few spoonfuls of Thai red curry paste, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar. These ingredients deliver the usual 4 main flavours of the Thai cuisine. Sweet, salty, spicy and sour.
I don’t love all things that come from a slow cooker but soups and stews are definitely those things that taste better if cooked low and slow.
Also, who is NOT a fan of a “throw everything in, walk away and come hours later to a cooked meal” method?! Easy and convenient.
Recipe Tips
Here are my suggestions for making this soup taste extra delicious.
- Dice the vegetables in equally sized pieces, so they cook at the same speed.
- Feel free to use white rice instead of wild rice and spinach instead of kale if that is your preference.
- Add sliced mushrooms and kale one hour before the soup is done. They don’t benefit from hours in the slow cooker.
- Serve the soup with a slice of lime, sprinkled with chopped peanuts and fresh cilantro for authentic Thai flavours.
This soup is a variation on my regular Thai curry recipe minus coconut milk as I wasn’t sure how it would do in a slow cooker. I also wanted to keep this soup quite lean.
If you prefer a creamy texture, stir in a can of coconut milk at the end and heat until it warmed through.
More Thai Recipes to Explore:
- Vegetarian Thai Green Curry
- Thai Green Papaya Salad (Som Tam)
- Thai Roasted Squash and Sweet Potato Soup
- Instant Pot Chicken with Thai Glaze
This recipe was originally published in 02/2017. Updated and republished in 01.2021
Ingredients
- 1 onion diced
- 2 celery ribs diced
- 3 garlic cloves
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 2-3 tbsp red curry paste
- 250ml/1 cup passata or crushed tomatoes
- 125g/3/4 cup wild rice or white rice
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1.5 litre/6 cups low-sodium chicken stock
- 6 (1 cup) large mushrooms sliced
- 100g/1 cup black kale/cavolo nero sliced
- ½ lime juice only
- 2 tbsp brown or palm sugar
- 30g/1/4 cup cilantro chopped
- 2 tbsp peanuts chopped (optional)
Instructions
- In a slow cooker combine evenly diced onions and celery, minced garlic, Thai red curry paste, fish sauce, crushed tomatoes, wild rice, chicken breasts and low-sodium chicken stock (otherwise the soup might be too salty).
- Cook for 4 hours on hight or 8 hours on low.
- The hour before the soup is done, take the chicken breasts out and shred them with two forks, then return back to the slow cooker.
- Add sliced mushrooms, kale, lime juice, sugar and chopped cilantro (I chopped up cilantro stalks as well as the leaves) and cook for additional hour.
- Serve sprinkled with some chopped peanuts and more cilantro.
