For me, January is all about soups and pastas. But after enjoying cozy soups for months, but January and February I’m looking for a little bit of a brighter flavor profile. My lemon, kale, and white bean soup is perfect for that, and so is this cozy cilantro chicken and rice soup. It’s filling and delicious, just like a more traditional chicken noodle soup, but the fresh cilantro and hefty squeeze of lime juice bring a different flavor profile to this soup.
The toppings for this cilantro, chicken, and rice soup are endless, but I like ripe avocado and some extra cilantro on top. An extra squeeze of lime juice, sour cream, and/or shredded cheese are also great options! Even though this soup is very different from a chili, I think any of the toppings that you like on chili would be perfect for this. Sliced jalapeño? Crushed up tortilla chips? Whatever you’re in the mood for, this soup is your vehicle for it. For a long time, I didn’t include avocado in my preferred chili toppings list, but a friend of mine showed me the way. Honestly, I’ll put avocado on just about anything. Smashed onto a sandwich, sliced on eggs, and now as a topping for this cilantro, chicken, and rice soup. I buy my avocados from Costco in a bag of 6, which means they all get ripe around the same time and then I’m forced to devour them. There are worst problems to have! And if you ever get sick of the more traditional avocado uses, my Ebook has an amazing recipe for an avocado mint chocolate mousse pie. It’s one of my favorite dessert recipes ever.
This soup is for you, to get you through this cold, wet stretch of time between Christmas and the first signs of spring. For us here in the Seattle area, January and February are our coldest months (still nothing that scares me after growing up in Chicago and attending college in New York) and the only time that we tend to see snow if we’re going to get any. We like to keep our snow in the mountains, so even a few inches will close schools and local businesses. It’s fun for a day, then quickly becomes a bit of a nightmare being stuck home with little kids. But we are ready for it if it comes!
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 onion, chopped
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 1 tsp. salt + more to taste
- ½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
- 1½ tsp. dried oregano
- ½ tsp. ground dried thyme.
- 2 cups cooked shredded chicken
- 1 cup brown rice
- ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro + more for topping
- Juice of 1 lime
- Sliced avocado, sour cream, or shredded cheese for topping, optional
- Heat olive oil in a large pot. Add garlic and onion and cook until translucent.
- Add chicken broth, salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, chicken, and rice. Bring to a simmer and cook until rice is tender, about 20 minutes.
- Stir in cilantro and lime juice. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.
- Serve topped with more cilantro, sour cream, avocado, shredded cheese, and an extra squeeze of lime juice.
- Enjoy!
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My daughter looooves this soup! We both top w avocado- I add pickled jalepeno to mine- served w a cheese quesadilla – perfect, easy dinner with leftover chicken!
It’s so good topped with avocado! I get my kids would love to pair it with a cheese quesadilla too!
I just made this tonight – followed the recipe line by line. It was not soup like but more like porridge. Disappointing.