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Instant Pot Wild Rice Soup with Chicken is one of the best soups. It uses real wild rice, earthy seasonings, mushrooms, and chicken, to make a hearty, classic soup. This pressure cooker wild rice soup with chicken is a staple from the beautiful state of Minnesota, and I adapted my mom’s recipe for the Instant Pot! It’s delicious!
Wild Rice Soup in the Instapot
Instant Pot Wild Rice Soup with Chicken (or make it without meat) is so delicious, creamy, earthy, and hearty.
This Instant Pot soup recipe has wild rice, chicken broth, mushrooms, a few simple herbs & spices, a creamy broth, and chicken.
A Little Wild Rice Info
- Wild Rice is actually the State Grain of Minnesota. Did you know there was such a thing as a State Grain? I didn’t.
- Wild Rice is native to North America, and mostly grows in the Great Lakes region. It has a higher protein content than most cereal grains.
- The color is a beautiful dark brown, and to me it smells a little like tea (though it doesn’t taste like tea). When cooked the grains “burst” and the texture is creamy and kind of chewy.
For this recipe you only need 1 cup, and that is the perfect amount with all of the other ingredients.
What About Wild Rice Blends?
- There are wild rice blends out there, but they don’t fare too well in this soup because the grains that are not wild rice get cooked away or turn too soft.
- If you can only find the wild rice blends in your grocery store, look for the ones with the highest percentage of wild rice in them. Look on Amazon, too. I provided a link below to the brand I like.
Here is a quick look at the steps to make this amazing pressure cooker Wild Rice Soup with Chicken:
It is as simple as sautéing the veggies and aromatics, then adding the remaining ingredients and pressure cooking it all.
This is a tasty, healthy wild rice soup recipe that is total comfort food. I hope you enjoy it!
Instant Pot Mushroom Soup
Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup
Instant Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup
Instant Pot Split Pea Soup
Instant Pot Creamy Chicken Gnocchi Soup
If you make this delicious Instapot wild rice soup, please leave a comment below with a star rating. I’d love to know how you liked it!
Instant Pot Wild Rice Soup with Chicken
Equipment
- 6-quart Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 5 slices Bacon, chopped
- 1 med Onion, chopped
- 2 lrg Carrots, chopped (2 cups)
- 3 ribs Celery, chopped (2 cups)
- 2 Tablespoons Butter
- 1 Bay Leaf
- ½ teaspoon Thyme, dried
- 3 lrg cloves Garlic, pressed or minced
- 4-5 cups Chicken Broth*, low sodium
- 8 oz Mushrooms, sliced
- 1 sprig Rosemary, fresh
- 1 cup Wild Rice, rinsed
- 1 ½ cups Heavy Cream, divided in half
- 2 teaspoons Kosher Salt (or 1 1/2 tsp table salt)
- ½ teaspoon Pepper
- 2 Chicken Breasts, uncut (skinless/boneless)
To Finish
- ¼ cup Flour
- ¾ cup Heavy Cream (from divided heavy cream above)
Instructions
- Turn the pot on to Sauté. Add the bacon pieces and cook, stirring occasionally, until mostly done. If you use a leaner bacon, leave the fat in. If there is more that 1 Tablespoon of fat, spoon it out, leaving 1 Tablespoon.
- Add the onion, carrots, and celery. Stir and cook a couple of minutes.
- Add the butter, bay leaf, and thyme. Cook for a couple of minutes.
- Add the garlic and stir it in, cooking for30 seconds to 1 minute. Don't let it burn.
- Pour in the broth and stir it well.
- Add the mushrooms, rosemary, and rice. Stir.
- Add ¾ cup of heavy cream, salt, and pepper, then stir. You can use half and half instead of heavy cream, if you want (if you want to use milk, add it after pressure cooking as it will not cook well. Heavy cream or half and half tolerate pressure cooking).
- Add the chicken breasts, and submerge them in the broth.
- Put the lid on the pot and set the steam release knob to the Sealing position. Then cancel the Sauté setting. Press the Pressure Cook/Manual button or dial. Then press the +/- button or dial to select 35 minutes. High pressure.
- When the cooking cycle is finished, let the pot sit undisturbed for 15 minutes (15 minute Natural Release). Then Manually release the remaining steam/pressure, carefully, using a controlled Quick Release (A controlled quick release is when you open the valve a little at a time to be sure no soup/sauce is going to spew out along with the steam when you release it. By starting out slowly and releasing the steam in bursts, you can avoid the mess! use a wooden spoon handle, or silicone oven mitts to avoid a steam burn.).
- When the pin in the lid drops down, open it up and carefully remove the chicken to a bowl.
- Mix the flour and remaining ¾ cup of heavy cream together very well, and stir into the hot soup.
- Shred the chicken and add it back into the soup. Let sit for a few minutes to thicken.
- Serve hot. Even better the next day!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This really is a terrific recipe. I did wind up using chicken leg meat, and substituting a small amount of xanthin gum in place of the flour in order to keep the carbs to a minimum. The flavor was excellent. I got about 2 1/2 quarts.
This is a great recipe! I will definitely make this again. Thank you for sharing.
We’ve made around five dishes with the instant pot, and this one has definitely been the best! My dad actually proclaimed it the best soup he has had and could not stop waxing poetic about it throughout the meal. We only ended up using 1/2 cup of rice due to a shopping mistake (also, wild rice is expensive in our area), but it was still very filling.
Oh my gosh! My boys are home from college and they loved this! I used 8 chicken thighs and had ordered the wild rice from Amazon. I also increased the amount of chicken broth. Excellent and easy to follow directions and this will be a staple in our house. Thanks for another delicious recipe!
My sister is a picky eater and doesn’t eat pork or beef. I don’t feel like turkey bacon would have the amount of grease or same effect for sautéing the veggies. Can I use olive oil as a substitute?
Yes, that would work just fine.
HI Sandy. I really enjoy your instant pot recipes.
I’m going to use leftover chicken for this recipe and I was wondering what the timing should be. I think 35 minutes will be too long with already, cooked chicken. Thoughts?
The timing is for the rice to cook. It takes longer than normal rice.
I made this last night. The only changes I made were that I used chicken thighs instead of breasts and I added a little more garlic. I also used half &half because that’s what I had on hand. This came out like a stew rather than a soup but oh my goodness it is phenomenal. Delicious, comforting, Mmmmm.
Oh I also added maybe a half teaspoon of chicken bullion just for good measure.
Can this recipe be used as a make ahead prep meal for storage in the fridge?
I haven’t tried it. I can’t think of a reason not to!
If I don’t have heavy cream or half and half, can I use whole milk or 2%?
Sure!
This is delicious! I always like a bit of brown rice with the white rice, but was Leary of adding too much as the ingredients were creeping up to the full mark and I know brown rice swells some. I added just 1/2 cup, but could have added the full cup. I rinsed it first. Due to the extra rice I added an extra cup and a half of liquid (so 5.5 cups. It was still nice and thick. I could have maybe squeaked in another half cup of broth and still had it fit. I think the flour and cream mixture added at the end would be a little better if the flour was browned first in a roux, but I wanted to try it as written first. It was still delicious, but I think it would be even more flavorful with the roux, altogether a very well written recipe and the step by step instructions are super helpful, as I haven’t used my instant pot much, despite having it for at least three or four years.
Good day
I made your soup yesterday but I had to make a few changes. My wife doesn’t eat carrots or celery so I turned it into a thanks giving soup. I instead of the celery and carrots I added butternut squash and extra onions. wonderful
I’m cooking this recipe for the first time, right now. Regardless of how it turns out, I really want to thank you for the step by step directions. I have really struggled with my instapot and other recipes. I haven’t even used my instapot in a year and a half and then I found this recipe. The directions were enough to give me confidence and take one more go at the instapot.