Chicken and Wild Rice Soup, Trail Version
A brothy one-pot dinner built on instant wild rice blend, freeze-dried vegetables, and a foil pouch of chicken.
- calories
- 540
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 108
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 17 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Winter / snow
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Quick-cooking wild rice blend | 1/2 cup | look for a parboiled or instant blend, not raw wild rice |
|---|---|---|
| Freeze-dried mixed vegetables | 1/3 cup | carrot, celery, and onion |
| Chicken bouillon | 2 tsp | paste or powder |
| Foil-pouch chicken | 1 pouch (5 oz) | |
| Ghee or olive oil | 1 tbsp | ghee keeps at temperature and does not leak |
| Salt and coarse black pepper | to taste | |
| Dried thyme | 1/4 tsp |
Method
- Bring 600 ml of water to a boil. Stir in the bouillon, rice blend, vegetables, and thyme.
- Drop to the lowest simmer your stove holds. Lid on, twelve minutes. Stir once halfway so nothing welds to the bottom.
- Check the rice. If the grains are still hard, add a splash of water and give it another five minutes. Raw wild rice will not cook here; that is why the blend matters.
- Kill the heat, tear open the chicken pouch, and stir the whole thing in, liquid included.
- Add the ghee, then salt and pepper. Let it sit two minutes off the stove so the rice finishes swelling.
The original is an hour-long simmer, and that is the one thing a stove cannot afford. Real wild rice needs 45 minutes or more of fuel, so this uses a parboiled blend that comes up in about twelve. Everything else follows from having no fridge: freeze-dried mirepoix stands in for the celery, carrot, and onion, bouillon replaces the stock, and the chicken arrives already cooked in a pouch.
The fat matters more than it looks. Broth soups are thin on calories, and a tablespoon of ghee is most of what makes this a dinner instead of a warm drink. Salt at the end, not the start — bouillon and the pouch liquid are already salty, and how much water actually boiled off is anyone’s guess.
Packing
Rice, vegetables, bouillon, and thyme go in one bag. The chicken pouch and the ghee ride separately. Pouch chicken is heavy for its calories, so this is a shorter-trip dinner or a first-night meal.
Variations
- Swap the pouch for 1 oz of freeze-dried chicken to cut two ounces of pack weight. Add it with the rice and another 100 ml of water.
- A tablespoon of powdered milk stirred in at the end makes it closer to the creamy version, without carrying anything wet.
- Instant potato flakes, one spoonful at a time, thicken it into a stew if the wind is bad.
https://www.bowlofdelicious.com/chicken-and-wild-rice-soup