Creamy Turkey Wild Rice Soup for your Thanksgiving leftovers

My favorite soup on the face of the earth is creamy chicken wild rice soup. It's a staple in Minnesota! When we had lots of turkey left over from Thanksgiving, I decided to alter our recipe to make the same soup with turkey instead of chicken. You know what? I couldn't even tell the difference!

My husband Mitch boiled the turkey carcass (I hate that word) to make the broth from scratch. About 1/4 of the way into cooking the soup I realized I should share it with you all and started snapping pics. I'm not The Pioneer Woman when it comes to culinary photography, but I figure a few average pics are better than no pics at all!



The most important ingredient is authentic wild rice. If you use white rice it will taste gross. Only wild rice will do. I picked up our wild rice stash at the farmer's market this summer. The vendor assured me that it was truly wild, all he does is harvest it. I thought that was pretty cool!

I originally found the basics of this recipe online, but then tailored it to make it my own by adding and removing ingredients. Here's the Missy version:

To start the soup, mix 1 cup of uncooked wild rice with 2 cups water and 4 cups broth (or 3 cans at 10.5 oz). Add in 1/2 cup of chopped carrots, 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms, and 1/2 cup chopped green onions. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until rice is tender, about 40 minutes.

While that's cooking, fry up 8 slices of bacon until crisp, crumble it up after it cools. And get your 1 and a half cups of diced turkey meat ready.

Melt 1/2 cup of margarine in a medium saucepan, then stir in 3/4 cup of flour, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt, 1/2 teaspoon of regular or sea salt, 1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning and 1/8 teaspoon of pepper all at once. Stir it all together, this makes a roux to thicken your soup.

Then stir in 2 cups of half-and-half (or milk - I use coconut milk due to dairy allergy) and continue to stir or whisk until smooth and thick, about 2 minutes. It should be the consistency of a thick sausage gravy.

Finally, stir this thick sauce into your original pot with the rice and veggies. Then add the bacon and turkey. Heat through and serve immediately (this is not one to leave on the stove all day). For reheating, add more milk and stir.

It's really creamy and yummy. If we didn't have nut allergies in our family, I'd add some almond slices to give it a little crunch. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!