My all-time favorite soup is Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup from Panera. I could eat it every day and be happy. However I cannot AFFORD to eat it every day and have my wallet be happy. So I went on a soup mission to recreate it. The only creamy soup I have ever made was baked potato soup and that was different–it was cheese. This soup, I knew, would need a roux. My very first roux. So I went for it!
I found a recipe online and used the basic structure for a creamy soup and then edited it to make it more Panera like.
I started with sautéing some vegetables–1 carrot, 1/2 white onion, 1 clove garlic, 1 stalk celery, and 1/2 small white potato. All veggies were cut very small so they would cook in the pan:
While the vegetables were hanging out, I boiled 5 cups chicken stock with a rotisserie chicken, cubed:
I also added a package of wild rice, sans seasoning. All the recipes I looked at suggested putting the seasoning in with roux. I couldnt figure out why, but I went with it. I added the rice and vegetables and took the pot off the heat because I needed my full attention for what came next:
The roux. It seemed simple (a lot of butter, flour, and some sort of dairy product (heavy cream, half and half, milk). So, I got about 7 tablespoons of whipped butter (yeah, I seriously tried to save calories in the butter-HAHA!) melting in the pan and then added the seasoning from the rice.
Once it was hot I started adding in the flour, about a teaspoon at a time. I ended up adding about 1/3 up of flour. Then it was time for the cream! I went with half and half–about cups worth. This is what I was nervous about, because logic told me the cream would scald when added to the hot pan. I turned the pan down to low and started with a Tablespoon. I kept whipping and adding the cream until it became think (and not burned!!!)
Once it was thickened I added to the rice/chicken stock along with some salt and pepper and let boil away! It is sooo delicious. In my opinion, freshly baked bread is a requirement!
There is nothing healthy about this recipe, but there is everything delicious about it!!
had to check out your soup after you told me about it.. IMPRESSIVE!.. looks yummy! good thing you ran off that butter on our run 😉
Need to make more–stat!