Several noninvasive light scattering techniques are reviewed that can be utilized in rheological studies of mucus and other soft biological matrices. Included are quasielastic light scattering techniques to determine the compressibility moduli of polymer lattices, resonance methods that can be used to measure the shear modulus of weak gels, assays that probe the swelling and contraction of mucin aggregates, and microscope based light scattering techniques to probe gelation within single cells.