Chicken and Rice Soup Slow Cooker Recipe | Unofficial Slimming World

This soothing bowl of chicken and rice soup is incredibly easy to make in the slow cooker AND it's unofficially "Syn Free" on Slimming World!

You've gotta love a good bowl of chicken soup for the soul!  And this recipe has been so soothing and filling all week and can be really easy to make in the slow cooker, too.

I say can be, because I personally did it a thrifty long way round by using up a whole chicken for more flavour with the help of one of my favourite Christmas gifts, an OXO good grips gravy fat separator.

The alternative method of course, is much easier than mine (I'll explain below) and that's just to use around 950g of skinless chicken breasts with no faffing at all.This absolutely isn't a sponsored post for the OXO jug but it'd been so long since I'd made proper beef gravy straight in the roasting tin. I've missed it.

How it works is, when you've put your meat juices in the jug, the fat should rise to the top allowing you to pour out the stock, leaving the fat behind.  

But, I've found the fat will pour through the spout right at the end, so I just chuck it away just before it gets to the very bottom.

COOKING TIPS

As for the rice, you'll notice I left this until the last hour and a bit.  If you cook it too long, it will turn to mush, giving it a thick, cream texture.  If you don't mind that and you're opting for chicken breasts instead, then feel free to cook everything all at once.

Also, cook a whole chicken too long, then the bones will start to crumble.  That's a mistake I made a decade ago and although tastes delicious, the thought of eating bones was unbearable, so I chucked away a whole meal.  Not good!

There's no question though that if you don't have time or patience, go for skinless chicken breast only.

If you're in town for a good chicken soup, then you might also want to venture towards my most popular two: chicken noodle soup or my creamy chicken soup.

RECIPE - SERVES 4

• 1 whole chicken or 950g skinless chicken breasts
• 4 whole garlic cloves
• 3-4cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled & finely chopped or grated
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 100g mushrooms, sliced
• A whole bunch of spring onions, trimmed & finely sliced
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 litres of water
• 3 chicken stockpots or 4 stock cubes (or more to taste at the end)
• 100g basmati rice or long grain (I used basmati)

1. Firstly, make sure all the string and giblets are removed from the whole chicken if using and place in the slow cooker.  Or, if you're using, just pop 950g skinless chicken breasts in.
2. Then add everything else except the rice and 3 spring onions and pop the lid on and cook on low for 6-7 hours or high for 3 hours 30 minutes.
3. If you've used chicken breasts, skip to step 5. If you've used a whole chicken, you'll need to remove the bird and place to one side while you pour all the stock through your fat gravy separator and wait until all the fat has risen to the top, then pour the fat free stock back in to your slow cooker.  *Note, once you get to the fatty residue at the bottom, you'll need to discard it and do this in batches.
4. Now completely remove all the skin, fat and bones from the chicken and discard.  This is quite time consuming, but worth it and place the lean chicken bits in to your slow cooker too.  You can also pop back any strained vegetables too or add more easy cook veggies to your soup.
5. Then add the rice and cook on high for 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes until it's cooked (or you could speed this up by cooking in a pan over the hob, but that means more washing up.
6. Finally serve and finely slice the three leftover spring onions and sprinkle on top.  (I just popped rosemary on top because I thought it looked pretty).
7. And tag me on Instagram if you made it and loved it! (@TastefullyVikkie).

📖 Recipe

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