Mushroom Chicken and Wild Rice Chowder
Freeze-dried mushrooms, instant wild rice, and pouch chicken thickened into a bowl you can stand a spoon in.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 131
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 14 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
- Liquid fuel
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Car camping
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Instant or quick-cook wild rice blend | 1/2 cup | the 10-minute kind, not raw wild rice |
|---|---|---|
| Freeze-dried mushrooms | 1/2 cup | sliced cremini or a mixed blend |
| Dried minced onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Chicken bouillon | 2 tsp | stands in for the stock |
| Whole milk powder | 3 tbsp | |
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 3 tbsp | replaces the flour roux |
| Butter powder or ghee | 1 tbsp | |
| Black pepper | 1/4 tsp | |
| Salt | to taste, added at the end | |
| Foil-pouch chicken | 5 oz |
Method
- Bring 600 ml of water to a boil. Add the rice, mushrooms, onion, bouillon, and pepper.
- Simmer 10 minutes with the lid on, stirring once or twice so the rice does not weld to the bottom. The mushrooms will drink a lot of the water.
- Cut the heat. Whisk in the milk powder and butter powder while the pot is still hot but not boiling, or the milk powder will clump.
- Stir in the potato flakes a tablespoon at a time until it thickens to chowder. Wait between additions; it keeps tightening.
- Fold in the chicken, put the lid back on for two minutes, then salt to taste.
The original is a roux soup: butter, flour, fresh milk, stock. None of that travels. The flour comes out and potato flakes go in, which thicken off the heat and never go pasty the way a raw-flour slurry does. Whole milk powder rebuilds the cream, and bouillon does the stock’s job at a fraction of the weight.
Freeze-dried mushrooms are the ingredient worth spending on. They rehydrate in the simmer and give back the savory liquid that makes this taste like it took an hour. Add the milk powder off the boil — dumped into a rolling pot it seizes into lumps you will be chasing with a spoon all night.
Packing
Everything dry except the chicken goes into one bag at home. Bouillon brands vary wildly in salt, so carry salt separately and season at the end rather than guessing in the kitchen.
Variations
- Skip the chicken and use vegetable bouillon for a cream of mushroom base.
- A splash of olive oil in place of the butter powder is cheaper and packs smaller.
- Dried thyme or a bay leaf dropped in with the rice is worth the gram.
https://www.bowlofdelicious.com/creamy-mushroom-chicken-and-wild-rice-soup