Chicken Soup with Brown and Wild Rice

As with most of my cooking, this soup doesn't have an exact recipe. My first attempt at making something similar was off of a recipe found on 365crockpot if you want to google it. That being said, this is my favorite soup to make at home and all of my kids eat it.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups of chicken broth

2 cups of water

2 chicken breasts cooked and chunked (if I remember correctly, the original recipe you put them in raw and let them cook, but I didn't like that so I precook mine)

1 box of Rice-a-Roni long grain and wild rice

1/2-1 cup of brown rice (This isn't in the original recipe, but I like more rice in it as well as a more thicker versus runny soup. I normally just grab a couple of handfuls of rice and plop it in. A white rice could also be used as well as using Costco's wild rice mix)

1 cup of diced carrots or shredded if preferred

1 cup of diced celery

1/4 cup of flour

1/4 cup of butter

1 cup of half and half (fat-free does work in this)

salt and pepper to taste

Combine the broth, water, carrots, celery, chicken, rice and box of Rice-a-Roni with seasoning packet in a large crockpot or pot for stove. Cook on low for 6 hours or high for 4 hours. If you put your chicken in raw take it out and cube or shred it and put it back in.

In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour (and I normally do a dash of pepper) by tablespoon to make a roux. Whisk in the half and half a little at a time until fully mixed and smooth. Stir cream mixture into soup and cook on low for 15 more minutes. (The original recipe had the amounts of the cream mixture at least doubled. I don't know if it is having added more rice or not, but for me, it is way too much and steals from the flavors and makes it a bit bland and too thick. The way I fixed that problem was to add chicken bouillon granules and water) Salt and pepper to taste and enjoy the comfort food!

This makes enough to feed 4 adults and 6 kids ;)