Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup (df, gf)

I could not love the fall season more if I tried. Seriously, I LIVE for this time of the year. It seems to be the season that is the least promising (e.g: when will it snow? is fall here for 5 days? a few weeks? a month or two? not at all?) and passes through the quickest. At least with winter and summer, you KNOW that you will feel it and it’ll be here for a good chunk of time. Not fall though. Shes shifty AF and doesn’t seem to stay for long (and yes, fall to me is a woman, lol)

Anyways, with fall coming along quite promising this year, I thought it would be a good time to create some tasty and warming soups to keep you warm on these soon to be chilly nights. SO, with that being said, I introduce to you:

My delicious DAIRY FREE Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup (that happens to be filled with veggies too).

Not only is it filled with broccoli, carrots, celery, roasted garlic, and onions but the “cream” base is actually CAULIFLOWER. So great right? I love substituting dairy for even more VEGGIES. My fav. Back in the day, my grandma used to make unbelievable chicken soups and her secret was to add a bit of brown sugar at the end. Now, I don’t use brown sugar but I do believe in adding honey! So at the end, I added 1 tsp of honey to the soup. I think I do this partly because I miss her and want to cook just like her (don’t we all want amazing meals that grandma used to make?? Always the best!) and partly because it really does taste good! You definitely don’t need to add it, but I did ♥

Ok, back to the good stuff – this soup. I hope you make it and enjoy it. Then make it again and again and again. And tell all of your friends, so they can make it too.

Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup (Dairy-free)

Soup ingredients
3 tbsp avocado oil
3 carrots – diced
2 celery sticks – diced
1 small yellow onion – diced (if you like a lot of onion, feel free to use a medium sized one)
1 shallot – diced
2-3 garlic cloves – finely minced
1/4 tsp dried parsley – if using fresh, you can add more
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp onion powder (optional – I find it gives another layer of that great onion flavor)
2 cups broth – I used chicken broth but you can use veggie if preferred
1 bay leaf
1.5-2 cups fully cooked shredded chicken – I used leftover chicken from a rotisserie chicken we bought
1 cup fully cooked wild rice (I just made a batch for the week and took 1 cup out of it)
1 cup chopped broccoli (this is added at the end of the soup cooking)
1/4 tsp salt – add more as needed. I definitely added more but you can start with this!
Cracked pepper to taste
Pinch cayenne (optional)
1 tsp honey (optional)
For “cream sauce”
1 head of cauliflower, on the smaller side – cut into medium chunks
1.5-2 cups broth
Salt to taste
(For the cream sauce, make sure you don’t throw out the hot broth liquid after the cauliflower is cooked. You will need that for the sauce part)

Directions
1. In a medium-large pot over low heat (set it to 3/4 heat) pour the avocado oil in and heat it up for a minute then add the chopped carrots, celery,onion, and shallot. Add a pinch of salt to the mixture (this helps the onions “sweat”) and saute frequently until the carrots have softened a bit and the onions are more translucent. Don’t burn it!
2. Next, add in the garlic cloves, parsley, thyme, oregano, and onion powder and saute together to let the spices mingle together. If you need to add a bit more oil, feel free to splash some in!
3. Now you will want to steam the cauliflower. Add the chopped cauliflower to the broth and bring to a low boil until the cauliflower is tender. When it’s done, make sure you don’t throw out the hot broth as you will be using some of this to make the sauce as well. You can also steam the cauliflower if you have the steaming equipment but again, make sure you don’t throw out the liquid!
4. Put the steamed cauliflower and 1/4 cup of hot broth liquid (to start) in a high speed blender, I use my vitamix for this. Slowly add more broth liquid as you need, to get the sauce consistency you want, which is thicker but still pour-able. Taste test and add some salt if needed. You can also add a bit of garlic powder too! Set this cream mixture to the side.
5. Once the spices have married a bit, turn up the heat to a medium and add in the 2 cups broth, bay leaf, chopped broccoli and cooked shredded chicken and stir together. Add some salt and pepper, taste test. Let this cook for a few minutes until broccoli is tender.
7. Then add in the cooked wild rice, and cauliflower cream mixture and let this heat up.
8. Taste test and adjust spices if needed. Add the honey (optional). Enjoy!

**Soup note: this soup becomes quite thick after being stored in the fridge for a day or two, you can always add a bit more broth when you heat up a bowl to thin it out a bit**