“If you’re blue, have the flu, or can’t seem to … then Chicken Soup is for you.” ~ Anon
Looking for a quick meal to throw together? This is not it! My Heal-All Chicken Soup recipe takes time – 8 to 12 hours minimum. I make this soup as medicine in a bowl…
Home-made chicken soup is filled with nutrients, is easy to digest, and has proven anti-inflammatory ability as well as boosting your immune system (read more about that here).
The beauty of this soup is that it’s a bone broth, and over time all of the fat and water soluble minerals and good bits dissolve into this magical elixir. One of the things this soup is chock full of is glycine. The amino acid glycine is great for liver detoxification and regeneration. Chicken soup is rich in collagen and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), one of which you’ve probably heard of – glucosamine – stunning for artery, bone and joint health. The gelatin produced from dissolving bones and cartilage in the making of this soup helps heal leaky gut, and also reduces your need for meat and protein.
In Chinese Medicine, bone broths are considered to support the kidneys and kidney meridians, and as such are also useful for healthy teeth, bones and adrenal gland function. So if you have adrenal fatigue this is a super recipe for you!
Note: Where possible choose organic and fresh local produce. 🙂
You’ll need the following equipment and ingredients:
A large saucepan or crockpot and a colander
Ingredients – First Step
1 whole chicken – best if organic and free range, one onion chopped into quarters (I use a brown onion and leave the skin on), a tablespoon of peppercorns or cracked black pepper, three bay leaves, two large celery stalks, two carrots, a bunch of parsley, a large twist of lemon rind, up to 8 cloves of garlic (don’t be afraid of garlic – garlic is your body’s friend), two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. Note – The vinegar is important for helping extract the calcium and other minerals from the bones.
Method:
Place chicken in your large saucepan and cover with cold water. Add in your peppercorns, vinegar and bay leaves. Leave this sit while you prepare the rest of your vegetables.
Lightly crush the garlic under a heavy bladed knife, peel off the skins and toss the whole cloves into the pot. Then roughly chop your celery and carrots and add that in with the parsley and onion. Take a large slice of skin off a lemon and throw that in too.
Bring the water slowly to the boil, and then reduce the heat to a slow simmer. Cover and let cook for 2 to 3 hours.
Turn off heat, and let stand for ten minutes, then carefully remove chicken from pot, placing on a large dish until it cools enough to handle.
Strip as much flesh as you can from the bones, setting the skin to one side. Reserve the cooked chicken meat, cover and place in the refrigerator. Then add the skin and bones back into the pot.
Bring the broth back to the boil and then reduce the heat, cover and simmer on very low heat for 6 to 8 hours.
Cool, and strain the broth into a large container. Pick over the bones if you want to retain any more chicken flesh, and then discard the strained contents. I often leave my stock to cool in the saucepan overnight and finish it the next day. This is a sensible idea if you want to complete the second step and make a full bodied meat and vegetable soup.
The soup is now ready to serve as a simple broth, or to use in other recipes as a stock base. It also freezes well.
Ingredients – Second Step
6 to 8 cloves of garlic, 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, fleshy part of half a leek, one onion, one to two parsnips, up to one cup of diced pumpkin or sweet potato, some of the reserved chicken meat, another bunch of parsley, the remaining lemon, 1/2 cup of pearl barley, brown rice or pasta/small noodles of your choice (optional).
Method:
Pour the broth back into the saucepan. Finely chop your garlic and onion and add that into the pot.Cut the lemon in half and drop that in too.
Then chop your chicken meat and other vegetables into small pieces and place in pot. Finely chop the parsley, and reserve some to sprinkle over your cooked soup. Add the rest into your soup.
If you want, you can add in some pearl barley, rice or pasta for extra body. This turns the soup into a filling meal, but it is also fine to leave out so that the soup is more of a broth consistency.
Bring the pot up to a simmer and then cover and cook for one hour. If you’ve added barley or rice etc, give the soup a good stir a few times during the cooking process to move things up off the bottom of the pot. Top up with a little water if needed, but if the heat is low and the lid is on you probably won’t need to do this.
Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove the lemon halves and discard. Serve soup with some of the reserved fresh parsley sprinkled over the top. The soup can be refrigerated for two to three days – just remove individual portions to heat up, and it also freezes well. Eat and enjoy. Wishing you the best of health! ♥ Nicole xx
Great tasting soup…worth every bit of the time taken to make it. Thank you for sharing.
I am so glad you enjoyed it 🙏💕
I have FINALLY made this soup! MMMMMMMmmmmm! It tastes like HEALTH. actually i could probably add a little salt & it will taste even better but yippee thanks for the repost of it, I was already halfway through prepping my bone broth when I saw it so your recipe had me way more confident & then the second stage…oh wow, i’m there! <3 xxx
Please may I have your posts through email? No worries if too much extra for you to do! I do t even k ow how you do all you do! 💞
Lyn, if you go to the home page of my blog you’ll see a button that says SUBSCRIBE (or something similar!) Just click on that! Love and hugs, Nicole xx
I love this recipe and have made it a few times, but the last two times I tried it, it became very bitter from the lemon… I followed the instructions closely so I’m not sure how I managed to get the first batches tasting great, but subsequent batches were almost inedible from the bitterness… Any ideas?
I had this happen once, Leigh, a few years ago, and put it down to the variety of lemon. My suggestion is to add the lemon much closer to the end of the cooking time. Or test your soup early on and pull the lemon out if the taste is beginning to be too strong. I hope that works for you. What a shame to have a soup spoiled after all that effort. Let me know how you go!
Hi I was just wondering how you modify the instructions for a slow-cooker. How long does the chicken need to cook in the slow cooker before you can take it out and shred it then put the bones back in?
Nicole, this chicken soup is divine! I’ve been out with the flu all week, and after stumbling upon your recipe in a google search for “healing chicken soup,” I decided to take on the creative challenge of making my first batch ever from scratch. It is *delicious* and I am so grateful that you’ve shared it with us 🙂
Loving your blog. Next up are the heavenly chocolate brownies!
Gratitude from NYC,
Ali
Thank you so much. I found my way here for my stock base, so that I may make a soup to increase my kidney and lung chi. I am using a recipe out of my TCM book. Namely “Between Heaven and Earth”. I have Kidney stones and I will be having surgery in a few days.
Blessings and thank you again.
Susan, I’ll include you in my healing meditations. Wishing you well with your surgery, much love, Nicole xx
What an absolutely wonderful recipe. So homey and comforting. Good for you too! And I think that is the best photo of chicken soup that I have ever seen. Bravo!
Yum! You inspired me to write about my stock – making. I’m linking back to you for a great chicken soup recipe to use it in. Thanks for helping my writers block…chicken soup really can fix anything:)
This looks amazing. I make a chicken soup, but I’m going to try this version next time. Thanks for sharing.
Your recipe looks so nurturing.
I Trust you are feeling better and better by the minute Nicole xox
Getting there, Vicki ♥♥♥ xx
My husband (who practices Chinese medicine) wanted to add that you can also add simple herbs to the broth such as Gou Qi Zi (goji berries) Da Zao (chinese dates- to tonify blood) and Dang Gui (to tonify and regulate chi and blood). Add Dang Gui during the first stage of broth for an hour and then remove however dates and goji can be left until final stage.
Thanks Tallulah, That’s great advice. Please thank your husband for me. {{{HUGS}}} xx
I’m sure this soup is healthy for meat-eaters, in which I’m not one. At least a well-made chicken soup smells nice and is comforting for those people who do eat chicken.
This is most definitely NOT a soup for vegetarians or vegans. I’ll be sure to post one of those in the coming weeks. Thanks for dropping by! 🙂
This looks great Nicole! I just posted my chicken soup recipe on my cooking blog last week: http://www.cookingintuitive.com/2013/01/30/chicken-soup/
–but I’m going to give your version a whirl next time. I always love to have it in my freezer for my self or friends in need. Best wishes and lots of love-Julie
Love your blog, Julie! Thanks for sharing the link. Bless ♥ xx
Firstly, I hope you are on the mend and are feeling so much better. Was it your big fat heart again?
Yum, looks de-lish! Just love a good chicken broth, a definite must try for me. Thanks for sharing Nicole! xxoo
Thank you!!! Yeah, big fart heart ‘n other stuff related to big fat heart. One day I shall blog about it, but for now while there’s food to talk about, and puppies, and life – well, I’d rather be blogging about that, Much love to you ♥ xx
Sounds wonderful, and just what i need at the moment. Thank you Nicole xx
Sending you much love and healing vibes, Suzy. And a great big hug xoxo
Oh man this sounds delicious! Thank you for the recipe.
You’re welcome. Enjoy! 😀 xx
OK, I AM SO HUNGRY RIGHT NOW AFTER LOOKING AT THIS!!!! looool. xoxox, sm
If you were closer I’d whip you up a bowl with some good sourdough bread on the side. Heaven!
mmmmm ….. looks stunning!
Tastes sooooo good – I’ve been living on this stuff, or variations of it the past few weeks. Dead easy too. Let me know if you make it 😀 xx