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Wild Rice Soup

Creamy, mushroomy and thick with grain. The wild rice cooks separately because it takes three times as long as anything else.

Prep
15 min
Cook
45 min
Makes
Serves 6
Jump to the recipe
A bowl of thick soup with rice, meat and vegetables
Photo: Jauhar Musthofal Qulub / Pexels

Wild rice is not rice. It is the seed of an aquatic grass, the grains are tougher and hold their shape, and it needs 45 minutes where white rice needs 15. Cooked in the soup from the start, everything else is overcooked by the time the grain is ready. Cooked separately and stirred in, it stays distinct and slightly chewy, which is the whole texture of the dish.

The reason it takes so long is that the bran layer is still on it. Water has to work through that hull before the starch inside can swell, so there is nothing to be gained by rushing it. The cue is visual and unmistakable: the grains split open lengthwise and curl back, showing a pale gray-white interior. Grains that are still smooth black cylinders are not done, whatever the clock says. Grains that have gone fully feathered and burst have gone past it.

Cook it in plain salted water and pour that water away. Wild rice releases tannins that leave the cooking liquid dark and faintly bitter, and people who try to be thrifty by using it as stock end up with a soup that tastes like weak tea.

Brown the mushrooms hard first, in a dry pan. They are 90% water and that water has to go before browning starts; oil and salt added early hold it in and you get gray mushrooms in a wet pan. Listen for it rather than watching — the pan goes from a wet sizzle to almost silent as the liquid boils off, and then to a dry squeak as the mushrooms start to take color. That squeak is the signal to leave them alone for two more minutes.

The soup thickens with a roux rather than cream alone. Flour cooked in butter gives body that survives reheating, where cream on its own separates when warmed a second time. Keep the roux blond — two minutes is enough to cook out the raw flour taste, and the longer a roux browns the less thickening power the starch retains. Add the stock a ladleful at a time at first, whisking each addition smooth before the next: dumped in all at once, the starch clumps faster than the whisk can break it up.

The cream then goes in at the end for richness, off the heat. Use heavy cream, at 36% fat or more. Half-and-half and milk carry too much water and not enough fat to stay stable next to the acid from the sherry, and they will break into curds in a hot pot. The same arithmetic decides whether a cheesy chicken pasta stays glossy or turns grainy in the pan.

Sherry or dry white wine deglazing the pan is what stops the whole thing tasting flat. Cream and mushrooms are both low in acid and the soup needs something sharp underneath them. Let it reduce until the pan is nearly dry, so what remains is the flavor and not the raw alcohol.

The mushroom method is the one from creamy mushroom sauce, scaled up. If you want the same bowl with poultry in it instead, farmhouse chicken noodle soup is the other winter default, and French onion soup is the one to make when the pot can sit on the stove for an hour.

Mixed white and wild rice grains
Photo: pictavio / Pixabay

Wild rice soup, printed

Creamy, mushroomy and thick with grain. The wild rice cooks separately because it takes three times as long as anything else.

One list

  • ¾ cup (150 g) wild rice
  • 14 oz (400 g) cremini mushrooms, sliced
  • ¼ cup (60 g) butter
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 3 carrots, diced
  • 3 celery sticks, diced
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • ¼ cup (60 ml) dry sherry or white wine
  • ⅓ cup (45 g) all-purpose flour
  • 5 cups (1.2 liters) vegetable or chicken stock
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 2 bay leaves
  • ¾ cup (180 ml) heavy cream
  • Salt and black pepper

Cooking the grain separately

  1. 1 Cook the wild rice in plenty of salted water for 40–45 minutes, until the grains have split open and curled back to show pale centers — tender but still chewy. Drain, and throw the dark cooking water away.
  2. 2 Meanwhile brown the mushrooms in a dry heavy pot over medium-high heat, undisturbed, until they have given up their water and it has cooked away — about 8 minutes. Tip them out.
  3. 3 Melt the butter in the same pot and soften the onion, carrot and celery for 8 minutes. Add the garlic for 30 seconds.
  4. 4 Pour in the sherry and scrape the base clean. Let it reduce almost dry.
  5. 5 Stir in the flour and cook 2 minutes, keeping it blond, then add the stock gradually, whisking each addition smooth, followed by the thyme and bay.
  6. 6 Simmer 15 minutes, then return the mushrooms and the cooked rice and warm through.
  7. 7 Take the pot off the heat, stir in the cream, and season. Remove the bay leaves.

Rice blends, reheating and making it ahead

  • A wild rice blend cooks faster than pure wild rice — check the packet and start tasting at 25 minutes.
  • It thickens overnight. Loosen with stock, not water, when reheating.
  • Cook the rice up to three days ahead and refrigerate it. It is the only slow part of the recipe and it reheats in the soup perfectly.
  • Reheat gently and never let it boil. The roux holds, but boiling cream that has already been cooked once is what makes a leftover bowl look grainy.
  • It does not freeze well. The cream separates and the rice goes soft. Freeze the soup base before the rice and cream go in, and finish it on the day.
  • For a vegan version, swap the butter for olive oil and the cream for full-fat canned coconut milk, added off the heat the same way.

Wild rice, split cream and mushroom choices

You will be trading the texture for the dish. Wild rice needs 45 minutes; the carrots and celery are done in 15 and collapse by 30. You would also lose control of the thickness, because the grain releases starch and drinks stock unpredictably as it goes.

It boiled, or it was made with half-and-half rather than heavy cream. Dairy below about 30% fat has too much water holding too little fat in suspension, and heat plus the acid from the sherry pulls it apart. Heavy cream and a gentle reheat survive both.

Cremini are the sensible default — they hold more flavor than white buttons and cost a fraction of anything wild. A handful of dried porcini, soaked and chopped, with their soaking liquid strained into the stock, lifts the whole pot more than an expensive fresh variety would.

Partly. Neither will brown the mushrooms or the roux, so do those in a pan first, then transfer. Wild rice does well under pressure — about 25 minutes at high with a natural release — but the vegetables and the cream still want the last stage on the stove.

With vegetable stock, yes, and it does not feel like a compromise, because the mushrooms and the browned flour are carrying the savory weight rather than any meat.