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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.

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.

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. The cream then goes in at the end for richness, off the heat.

The mushroom method is the one from creamy mushroom sauce, scaled up.

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.

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) chestnut 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
  • 1.2 liters (5 cups) 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 are tender but still chewy. Drain and set aside.
  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, then add the stock gradually, whisking, 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.

Blends, and reheating

  • 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.