Homemade Chicken Soup

Homemade chicken soup

This is our go- to recipe when we start to feel the sniffles coming on. There is a reason Chicken Soup is recommended when starting to feel sick, not only soothing to the throat, more importantly cooking the full chicken or cooking the chicken bones. Amino acids in bone broth, like arginine, glutamine, and cysteine, have been shown to boost immunity in humans and animals along with reducing inflammation in the gut.

Ingredients

· 1 full chicken with bones 1.5 kilos

· 3.5 liters of water

· 100 grams of ginger

· 2 medium onions

· 1 Tablespoon of salt

· Pepper

· Carrots

· Celery

· 100 grams of rice or noodles

Additional Options to switch it up:

· Lemon

· Lemon Grass

· Chili flakes

Directions

Step 1: Bone Broth.

First you will want to make the bullion which will take around 1 and ½ hours. I recommend a large Dutch Pan or Crock-pot, and fill it with the following:

o 3.5 liters of water

o 100 grams of peeled and chopped up ginger

o 1 medium onion peeled and chopped

o 1 tablespoon of salt

o Lemon grass if you like the lemony flavor

o A few shakes of pepper

o Heat to a boil and skim off the top frothily white layer

o Let simmer for 60 – 75 minutes until the meat falls off the bone

Step 2: Separate the bone broth.

o Then you will want to take the chicken meat out of the pot and shred the chicken and toss the bones in the bin.

o Have a large glass or ceramic bowl, and a colander where you can pour the bullion into to remove the onion, ginger and lemon grass.

o Pour the bullion back in the Dutch Oven or Crock-pot

Step 3: The Chicken Soup

o Add the shredded chicken to the soup

o Chop up one large carrot, 2 celery stalks and 1 medium onion in small slices and add to the soup

o At this point you can add the additions such as 1. Washing a lemon, grating it and adding the lemon rinds to the soup, and/or slicing a lemon and add the lemon juice, and/or some chili flakes. We normally change it up a bit each time.

o Be sure to soak and rinse your rice before adding it to the pot or if opting for noodles add them in now

o Let simmer for 30 – 40 minutes and Viola! A healthy homemade Chicken Soup, which makes a large batch, so you can also enjoy it for the week to ideally beat that cold that was sneaking!