Chicken Soup

Chicken Soup is already a great healing food, traditionally used for upper respiratory infections , but can also be loaded up with extra immune-supporting foods. The recipes below contain anti-inflammatory and virus-fighting ingredients, and you can be flexible with what you have on hand. 

I do recommend you make a batch of chicken bone stock first. However if time is short, you can either use some stock cubes or buy some good quality bone broth, or a broth powder, and add the extra anti-inflammatory ingredients to the soup. 

Chicken Bone Broth

The ingredients are not rigid- use what you have. 

Ingredients:

1 chicken carcass

some chicken wings, necks and/or feet. 

1 tbs any vinegar (I use apple cider)

Any vegetable scraps like celery, carrot, potato peels (organic only)

Garlic, ginger

Any medicinal mushrooms you have access to- Asian food stores often have packets of them, but I like to buy dried shitake mushrooms online for my soups. 

Any fresh or dried herbs you have like parsley, rosemary, thyme, oregano (1-2 tbs chopped)

Directions:

Put all ingredients except the fresh herbs into a large pot, and cover with water. then cover with a lid, and simmer for 4 hours. 

You can also make this in a slow cooker- in which case it is nice to leave simmering overnight- or in a pressure cooker- in which case an hour will be fine. 

Once done, remove the lid and add any fresh herbs and let sit a while longer for the flavours to steep. Then strain off everything and use the broth either on its own (perfectly delicious) or as a basis for soup. 

Chicken Soup

For a 3 or 4 litre pot: 
Ingredients:

1 tbs coconut oil

Approximately 500g of leftover shredded chicken, or fresh cubed thigh or breast. 

2 -4 cups of any vegetables you choose and enjoy, chopped into small pieces ( eg potato, pumpkin, broccoli, celery, onion, carrots, garden peas etc)

Several cloves of garlic- the more the better

a good inch of ginger, grated 

1/2-1 tsp turmeric powder or fresh turmeric, grated

Any herbs and spices you enjoy such as fresh thyme, rosemary, sage or oregano (2 tbs fresh)

Any medicinal mushrooms, powdered/fresh/dried

(optional) 1/2 cup of soaked dried lentils or a can of your favourite legumes can be added

The chicken stock (home made or bought, or water with stock cubes) (2-3 litres) 

Directions:

1. Heat the pot, add the coconut oil

2. Saute any onion, garlic, celery, carrots

3. Add in ginger and turmeric, saute until fragrant

4. Add in the rest of the ingredients

5. Simmer for 25 minutes or so

An alternative if you are not feeling well or need to be quick, is to just put all these ingredients together in the pot and then fill the pot with chicken stock and simmer for 20-25 minutes.