My Chicken and Rice Soup with Sage Seasoning

Chicken and Rice Soup

I came up with this recipe as a quick and easy way to make chicken soup that I like and my mom might eat.  It started as a version of Chicken Noodle Soup.  However, mom prefers rice over noodles in her soup, so I came up with this variation on the noodle recipe.  I added poultry seasoning instead of listing a lot of spice items, since it already has sage and most of the spices and herbs used in dressing. My mom is a big fan of sage-flavored dressing.  If you want the noodle version, see tips at bottom.

Shirley’s Easy Chicken and Rice Soup

Ingredients:

6 cups chicken broth

4-5 carrots, peeled and sliced into ¼” coins

1 medium onion, peeled and chopped

4 celery stalks, sliced into ½” moons

1 cup chicken, shredded

1 cup uncooked rice

½ teaspoon garlic salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

1 Tablespoon dried parsley flakes

1 Tablespoon poultry seasoning

Directions:

1.    Pour broth into soup pot and heat. 

2.    Add carrots, celery, onion and chicken.  Cook until carrots are near tender. 

3.    Once it broth is boiling and vegetables seem close to done; add seasonings, parsley, and rice. Cook for as long as the rice package says.

4.    Serve hot.  See substitution for deeper sage flavor.

Substitutions and Tips:

• You may use canned chicken (2 small or 1 large) drained or tear apart previously boiled or roasted chicken. 
•  My mom prefers this soup with white rice that is cooked until very soft.  However, I have made it with brown rice for myself and that works well too. If the rice soaks up too much of the broth, just add more broth before serving.
• I add a teaspoon of ground sage into the entire soup pot for mom before serving.  This gives it a more intense sage flavor, which is what she really likes.  If you like the flavor of sage, try it or adjust to ½ teaspoon if the flavor is too intense.  If you made it too strong, then add more broth to water the flavor down.
• I keep instant chicken bullion cubes handy to make extra broth in the microwave.  This way I can put additional cups of broth into soup as needed.
• When I use this recipe to make Chicken Noodle Soup, I replace the 1 cup of uncooked rice with about 1 cup of egg noodles.  However, you can use other noodles such as shell, bow tie, wagon wheel, or alphabets to make it more interesting for your family. I also use ½ teaspoon dried oregano and ½ teaspoon of dried basil instead of the poultry seasoning.

Here is a Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup that sounds really good too!