Recipe: Cold-Busting Chicken Soup with Lemon and Ginger

Iโ€™m just going to come out and say it: I dreadย this season.

Donโ€™t get me wrong, I used to love fall. But now that I have kids, this is the season of sickness. Already since the girls have started school, weโ€™ve had this incredibly bad cold, cough, and fever virus circulating through the four of us at least three times. Itโ€™s brutal, and this is only the beginning.

At least thereโ€™s chicken soup, though!

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Iโ€™m a big believer in chicken soup as a healing food. Nothing is better than a warm bowl of chicken soup when the weather is crap outside and you canโ€™t breathe through your nose. My chicken soup recipe adds the anti-inflammatory properties of garlic, ginger, and turmeric to really destroy whatever ails you. Even if you’re not sick, this soup is a winner!

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You can make this soup literally in 30 minutes, because it uses pre-made chicken broth as the base. Use a rotisserie chicken, already-shelled peas, and youโ€™re on the way to a quick and delicious dinner. One great thing about chicken soup is that it freezes well, so anything you donโ€™t eat can go into the freezer. Portion it out and keep it for a night thatโ€™s cold and you donโ€™t want to cook.

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I sometimes put noodles into this soup, and I recommend that if youโ€™d like them in the recipe, cook them separately and serve the soup over them. That way, you avoid mushy noodles.

 

Just a note about this recipe. I donโ€™t want you to worry about how many cups of onions, how many teaspoons of lemon zest, or how many peas you need, down to the last little pea. Iโ€™ve intentionally left this as sort of an un-recipe, because simply, following it to a tee doesnโ€™t really matter all that much in the finished product. As long as you have the right amount of broth, everything else is somewhat approximate. Donโ€™t freak out, it will be delicious. Along the same lines, feel free to add ingredients, too. Fresh dill, hot peppers, kimchi, parsnip, kale, whateverโ€ฆthey can all be added with great results.

Cold-Busting Chicken Soup with Lemon and Ginger
Servings: 10 people
Ingredients
  • 4 โ€“ 900ml boxes of chicken broth
  • 1 roasted chicken all meat picked off and cut into medium chunks, I use rotisserie chicken
  • 2 medium yellow onions chopped
  • 5-6 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 400 g bag of shelled peas around 1.5 cups
  • 1 green onion diced
  • 4 very large carrots cut into ยฝโ€ rounds
  • 2 T olive oil
  • 1 3- inch knob of ginger peeled
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 t ground turmeric
  • Zest from 1 lemon finely tested - use a microplane if you can
Instructions
  1. In a large pot, saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until fragrant.

    Add the chicken and turmeric and continue to sautรฉ for another 3-4 minutes, or until the chicken is slightly browned.

  2. Add the remaining ingredients to the pot, and cook on medium-low heat until the carrots are soft and flavours are melded, around 30 minutes.

    The soup gets more flavourful the longer it sits! Enjoy!

 

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