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Leftover Turkey Wild Rice Soup

Name: Leftover Turkey Wild Rice Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 55 min
Ingredients: 1 medium onion (chopped); 2 medium carrots (peeled & chopped); 3 sticks celery (chopped); 1 tablespoon olive oil; 2 tablespoons butter; 3 cloves garlic (minced); 2 dashes Italian seasoning; 3 heaping tablespoons flour; 6 cups chicken broth; 1 cup uncooked wild rice; 2 cups (or more) cooked turkey meat (shredded/cut up); 7 ounces cremini mushrooms (sliced); Salt & pepper (to taste); 1/2 cup heavy/whipping cream (optional)

Published: Nov 24, 2019 / Updated: Nov 24, 2019 / 26 Comments

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This turkey wild rice soup recipe uses leftover turkey (or chicken) meat and makes the coziest soup!

There's two types of people - the ones who look forward to the Thanksgiving feast itself, and then the type that looks even more forward to the leftovers. Which camp do you fall into?

In case you were wondering... what is wild rice? A bit of trivia for you - wild rice isn't technically rice at all. It's the seed of a tall aquatic grass. Now you know.

Wild rice takes a fair bit of time to cook, but as I like to keep things simple around here, there's no pre-cooking of the rice required like in some other wild rice soup recipes. I give the rice a head start and then add the turkey and mushrooms into the soup a bit later so they don't overcook. One pot meal. Ok, so I have this pet peeve where I get irritated when people describe soup as a "one pot meal". It's pretty rare when soup isn't just made in one pot, isn't it? I can think of like one soup that I make where you need to dirty up more than one pot, and it involves sieving a roux into the soup. But anyway...

Recipe notes:

I've tested this with a wild rice blend, and it tastes just as good, but it discolored the soup a bit (made it a little brown). It really depends on the blend you buy, but just letting you know that this can happen depending on what rices are in the blend.
You could try swapping the wild rice for white rice or brown rice, but keep in mind that you may need to adjust cooking time a bit (white rice especially cooks much faster).
This soup will work just as well with leftover cooked chicken meat (or even buy a rotisserie chicken).
Feel free to add different vegetables or leave out the mushrooms if they're not your thing.
If you're planning on freezing this soup, I suggest freezing it without the rice and then adding cooked rice to it prior to serving. I'd also add the cream in just prior to serving it.
This soup will keep for a few days in the fridge, but you may need to add some more broth when reheating if the wild rice soaks up too much liquid for your tastes.

Other leftover turkey recipes you may like:

Will you make this turkey and wild rice soup?

Questions? Leave me a comment below! What's your favorite way to use up turkey?