This chicken, rice and bean soup is very budget friendly, filling and comforting. You can mix it up based on the vegetables you have on hand and it also freezes very well!
Ingredients
This recipe makes 6 – 7 adult size portions of soup. You can add any other vegetables you like. I think green beans, celery, broccoli or cauliflower would work well!
- 8 cups chicken/vegetable stock (I used home made chicken stock, but you can use stock cubes/powder and water)
- 500g cooked chicken shredded or cut into smaller bite sized pieces
- 1 brown onion (diced small)
- 2 cloves of garlic (minced)
- 1 x 400 ml can diced tomatoes
- 2 tbsp tomato paste (optional, but I think this adds a lot of flavour)
- 1 x 400 ml can of beans (I used cannellini beans, dried beans (approx 1 cup) would also work, but make sure to adjust your cook time.
- 2-3 medium carrots (diced small)
- 1 cup fresh cilantro or spinach (frozen spinach also works)
- 1 cup rice (I used brown rice, which has a longer cook time, but white/basmati rice would also work)
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp chilli powder (less if you don’t like spicy)
- Salt to taste (remember the stock is also salty)
- The juice from 1 lemon
- Oil for cooking
Instructions:
- Add 1 tbsp oil to a soup pot on your stove
- Saute onion for 2-3 mins.
- Add minced garlic + tomato paste and saute for 1 minute.
- Add all ingredients except cilantro/spinach and lemon
- Bring to a boil and then reduce temperature to a low simmer to allow rice to fully cook (about 25-30 mins for white rice, 45-50 mins for brown rice)
- In the last 15 mins of cook/simmer time, add the fresh cilantro/spinach.
- Take soup off heat and stir in lemon juice.
- Allow soup to sit for 5-10 mins before serving.
- Serve with bread or eat as is.
This soup stores well in an airtight container in the fridge for 2-3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. When freezing soup remember to leave room in the top of the container, as liquid expands as it freezes.