This Chinese herbal chicken soup is so good for your immune system and warms you up in cold weather. These herbs have been used for centuries to help generate overall well-being, build stamina, boosts energy, and even help treat certain ailments.
This chicken soup is so comforting! We love making this soup during flu season to help boost our immune system. Plus, it’s great to have when it is really cold outside. It warms up your insides and feels like a nice warm hug. That may sound silly, but that is the best way I can describe how eating this soup feels in words. The ginseng in this soup also helps with stamina and energy, so this soup is also great to have in the summer!
Key features and tips
You’ll have to splurge on some of the dried herbs if you don’t already have them. However, these dried herbs last for a LONG time. So, it might be a bit of an investment at first, but you’ll be able to make several herb chicken soups once you have the dried herbs in your pantry.
Make sure you choose a pot large enough for your chicken. Plus, you need enough room to cover the chicken with water. You just want to make sure water is at least covering the entire chicken.
Ingredients needed to make this herbal chicken soup
- Small whole chicken (organic/free-range preferably)
- Fresh ginger root
- Garlic cloves
- Goji berries (fruit of barbary wolfberry)
- Angelica sinensis root
- Astragalus root
- Dried Chinese yam
- American (yellow) ginseng
- Water
- Salt
- Green onions
Tools/items to help you make our recipe
How to make this Chinese chicken herbal soup
Step 1: Prepare the chicken
Let’s prepare our ingredients. Rinse the chicken and remove any innards. Place the whole chicken in a large pot. You want enough room in the pot of your choice to allow for water to cover the whole chicken.
Step 2: Rinse the dried herbs
Rinse off all of the dried herbs or dunk them in a bowl of cool water. This is just to remove any dirt/debris before placing them in the soup. Rinse or remove the herbs from water and place them in the pot with the chicken.
Step 3: Add water and the rest of the ingredients to the pot with the chicken
Add the remaining ingredients to the pot with the chicken and herbs: ginger root, garlic, and enough water to just cover the chicken in your pot.
Step 4: Bring it to a boil
Bring it all up to a boil. Once it starts to boil for a few minutes, remove any scum floating on the top of the soup. Continue to periodically check for any additional scum, and remove it.
Lower the heat to a low-to-medium heat. Allow it to continue to simmer for another 1.5 hours. You want the chicken to be tender, but you also don’t want it to be completely falling apart. The water at this point should have reduced.
Step 5: Remove from heat and remove chicken plus the herbs
Remove the pot from heat. Remove the chicken and plate on a large plate. Remove all of the dried herbs and ginger root from the soup with a slotted spoon. You could also remove the garlic or leave the garlic in the soup to eat. Note: We actually left some of the goji berries (as you can see in some of the pictures), so you can remove them or eat them as well.
Step 6: Section chicken or remove meat from the bone
This is where you have a couple of choices: 1. Serve the chicken in whole sectioned pieces in each bowl, or 2. Remove the meat from the bones and return to the soup. For ease of eating for the whole family, we always remove the meat from the chicken and put it back in the soup. This way no one is picking through bones later, however, this is totally your choice/preference.
Step 7: Make individual bowls and add salt to taste plus green onions
Each individual salts their own bowl to taste. Add some freshly chopped green onions to the top of each bowl. We hope you enjoy this Chinese chicken herbal soup recipe!
Serving suggestions
Of course, you already know that we would suggest serving this soup with freshly steamed rice. However, you could also enjoy the soup sans rice for a low-carb option. Add in a few extra side dishes if you wish, like our Korean Seasoned Spinach Side Dish (Sigeumchi-namul), Spicy Korean Radish Kimchi, Korean Spicy Stir-Fried Eggplant, or Easy Napa Cabbage Korean Kimchi – Cut-Up Kimchi.
Need more soup recipes?
- Quick and Easy Asian-style Potato Soup
- Easy Dumpling Soup (Mandu-guk)
- Simple Korean Taro Soup (Toran Guk í† ëž€êµ)
- Easy Homemade Egg Drop Soup
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Chinese Herbal Chicken Soup
This Chinese herbal chicken soup is so good for your immune system and warms you up in cold weather.
Ingredients
- 1 small whole chicken (4-5lbs, organic/free-range preferably)
- 1 small thumb-size fresh ginger root
- 7 garlic cloves
- 2 tablespoons goji berries (fruit of barbary wolfberry)
- 5 small slices (about 0.35oz) angelica sinensis root
- 5 pieces (about 0.4oz) astragalus root
- 3-4 dried slices (about 0.70oz) dried Chinese yam
- 2 small thumb-sized pieces (about 0.20oz) American (yellow) ginseng
- Water (enough to cover the chicken in your pot)
- Salt (to taste, for each individual bowl)
- 3 Tbsp Green onions, chopped
Instructions
- Let’s prepare our ingredients. Rinse the chicken and remove any innards. Place the whole chicken in a large pot. You want enough room in the pot of your choice to allow for water to cover the whole chicken.
- Rinse off all of the dried herbs or dunk them in a bowl of cool water. This is just to remove any dirt/debris before placing them in the soup. Rinse or remove the herbs from water and place them in the pot with the chicken.
- Add the remaining ingredients to the pot with the chicken and herbs: ginger root, garlic, and enough water to just cover the chicken in your pot.
Bring it all up to a boil. Once it starts to boil for a few minutes, remove any scum floating on the top of the soup. Continue to periodically check for any additional scum, and remove it. - Lower the heat to a low-to-medium heat. Allow it to continue to simmer for another 1.5 hours. You want the chicken to be tender, but you also don’t want it to be completely falling apart. The water at this point should have reduced.
- Remove the pot from heat. Remove the chicken and plate on a large plate. Remove all of the dried herbs and ginger root from the soup with a slotted spoon. You could also remove the garlic or leave the garlic in the soup to eat. Note: We actually left some of the goji berries (as you can see in some of the pictures), so you can remove them or eat them as well.
- This is where you have a couple of choices: 1. Serve the chicken in whole sectioned pieces in each bowl, or 2. Remove the meat from the bones and return to the soup. For ease of eating for the whole family, we always remove the meat from the chicken and put it back in the soup. This way no one is picking through bones later, however, this is totally your choice/preference.
- Each individual salts their own bowl to taste. Add some freshly chopped green onions and enjoy!
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