Chicken and Rice Soup

I woke up craving soup I've never even tried, but I couldn't get it out of my mind. I googled and found several recipes that sounded yummy.  I started with The Pioneer Woman's Chicken and Rice Soup and tweaked the recipe just a bit to include the things that I had on hand.  I have to tell you, my Chicken and Rice Soup was delicious and lived right up to the expectations I had in my mind.

I used her directions for dicing my onion. {who knew?} and even included her grandmother's yellow food coloring.  But, I didn't have chicken bouillon cubes or pimento and wanted to add carrot for pizazz.  I also only use boneless, skinless checken breasts here -- because the bones kind of creep me out.

My version of Chicken and Rice Soup was definitely a recipe we'll keep around.  We all enjoyed it and thought it perfect comfort food for cold winter nights.  Next time, though, I'll not add the rice until I'm ready to serve the soup.  I'm learning.

Chicken and Rice Soup

1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
Olive Oil
3 chicken breasts
6 teaspoons Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base
6 Tablespoons margarine
4 Tablespoons flour
Yellow food coloring
Salt and Pepper, to taste
Cooked rice to preference.  You'll want to cook at least a cup of uncooked rice.  We like LOTS of rice so I used 2 cups of uncooked rice.  I made mine in my rice cooker and then added it to the soup.  You can make yours however you normally do.

Boil chicken breasts in 2 quarts water.  Add Better Than Bouillon base.  Add salt and pepper, to taste.  Remove chicken, cool, cut into bite-sized pieces.  SAVE this broth.  It's your soup base.

Prepping Chicken

Chop onion and saute in olive oil.

Sauteing onion.

Chop carrots, bell pepper, and celery:

I pre-chop and freeze as much of this as I can.

Add carrots, bell pepper, and celery to sauteing onion.   Continue sauteing until all veggies are tender.  Doesn't that look yummy?

Beautiful

Add 2 Tablespoons of butter and chopped chicken.  Mix well and let flavors meld together.  Then add veggie/chicken mixture to chicken broth.

Melt remaining 4 Tablespoons of butter and add 4 flour, stirring continually to form a roux.  Add roux to soup mixture and add 4 - 6 drops of food coloring.  This just makes your soup a pretty color reminiscent of sunshine.  As cold as it is around here, I'm ready for a bit of sunshine.  How about you?

I added the rice to my soup all at once -- but next time I will let each person add it as they fix their bowls.  As you know, rice "grows" in liquid.  It was still delicious, but was a bit thicker than I had planned.

We enjoyed this recipe so much there were ZERO leftovers for lunch the next day.  I almost didn't even get a picture of the finished product.  Whew -- good thing I did.

Mmm, Mmm GOOD

I'm joining with my friend Lisa over at Home to 4 Kiddos.  Jump right over and try a new recipe today.

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