My Favorite Creamy Wild Rice Soup Is Comfort in a Bowl

I moved from Maryland to Florida seven years ago and was a total newbie to grocery shopping at Publix when I entered the Sunshine State. One of the best discoveries I made while perusing the aisles of the Southeastern grocery store chain was its hot soup bar, located near the deli, which is always serving up warm and comforting soups on the go. It didn’t take long to find Publix’s chicken and wild rice soup, a creamy combo of veggies, protein and carbohydrates that quickly became my all-time favorite comfort food.

When I’m sick or having a bad day, my husband always offers to drive to our closest Publix to see what soups they have that day. If there’s chicken and wild rice soup on the hot bar, he brings me a large container, and—placebo effect or not—it helps fix what ails me. The only problem? Publix offers a different menu of soups depending on the day of the week, so this delicious soup isn’t always something I can run into my local store and grab.

For those times when I want Publix creamy chicken and wild rice soup but can’t buy it from the store, I went on a mission to learn how to make it at home. There’s not much out there on the internet about how to make a copycat version of Publix’s chicken and wild rice soup, so the only way I could try to find a comparable version of this comforting concoction was trial and error.

I tried recipes from celebrity chefs like Ree Drummond and Ina Garten, but while delicious, these versions weren’t exactly the same flavor-wise. The ingredients in Publix’s version seem simple: wild rice, cubes of tender chicken, carrots, celery, mushrooms and cream. Tweak as I might, I couldn’t find a recipe that would give me the exact same flavor profile as my beloved Publix soup.

When I discovered a Creamy Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup recipe on EatingWell, I immediately took note of the recipe description, which promised “earthiness and umami flavor,” something that had been missing in other at-home recipes I’d tried. The EatingWell version is vegetarian, so I immediately knew I’d be tweaking it to add some chicken for additional protein, but the other ingredients—celery, mushrooms, carrots, heavy cream and cooked wild rice, to name a few—looked incredibly similar to the soup I’d come to crave from Publix. 

Even the recipe note about how the soup “thickens as it sits” seemed promising, as Publix’s chicken and wild rice soup is always brothy in the beginning, but becomes thicker as leftovers. I gathered the ingredients, substituting chicken broth for vegetable broth and adding in two cooked, diced chicken breasts. Then I tested it out in my own kitchen.

The result was the closest flavors to Publix chicken and wild rice soup I’ve been able to replicate at home, and the EatingWell version has become my go-to soup recipe when I’m under the weather or need a comforting pick-me-up. I’ve been known to whip up a batch on a Sunday afternoon to have on hand throughout the week, and I can feel good about its ingredients since I’m making the soup at home and can control what goes into my soup pot.

Give it a try and, if you’re lucky enough to live in Publix country, compare the two soups. You’ll find they’re almost identical and are equally comforting when someone in your house has a sniffle or is feeling sad. After all, there’s nothing that says love quite like a steaming bowl of homemade soup.

The Bottom Line

My soup-making persistence paid off in this Creamy Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup recipe. Not only is it super-close to my favorite Publix soup, but it’s easy to make and only gets better as it hangs out in the refrigerator. It’s totally worth adding to your fall soup rotation, whether you switch it up and add chicken or keep it as a vegetarian soup.