How to make a Chicken and Coconut Chinese Herbal Soup (as frozen packs)
Soup Name: Warming Chicken and Coconut Chinese Healing Soup (as frozen soup packs)
Traditional Chinese Name: 椰子雞湯 (yē zi jī tāng)
Nature: Warming
Taste: Sweet
You can follow this video first on “How to make Frozen Chinese Soups in bulk“.
The business case for making frozen soup packs in bulk!
This use case continues to amaze me! Literally, this morning, I was like “I feel like soup” and I took out another one of these soup packs (this one to be precise because I made extra for me and my pescatarian friend) and tossed it into the rice cooker, topped up with water, added a few red dates and an hour later, had soup ready for lunch and dinner.
To start, I did a survey when I first initially created these for friends and the time saving is phenomenal.
On average, it takes someone 2-3 hours of time to make a Chinese soup (beginning to end with checking). Compared to using frozen premade soup packs using a rice cooker, it takes 5 minutes of work (and then 60 mins of no supervision) with an upfront investment of 2-3 hours to make 6 soup packs. So on average, you are saving 14 hours of time over 6 soups. The math isn’t perfect, but this was my best estimate based on answers from friends. That’s HUGE!
This soup is similar to a Warming Chicken and Coconut Herbal (Healing) Chinese Soup that I also made into frozen soup packs (except used corn as well).
This soup pack is smaller than my average ones because I don’t have as many vegetables, and yet it packs the same delicious punch of all my soups!
If you have a wet vacuum sealing kit, you can consider adding the coconut water as well, which makes it deliciously sweet! I ended up adding my coconut water into the fresh soup I was also making parallel to the frozen kits.
Chicken and coconuts are great pairs in taste and a traditional soup in Cantonese soup repertoire. It is often found served in Chinese restaurants and commonly made in Chinese households (especially in Hong Kong).
What’s involved?
Prep time: 60 mins
Cook time: no cook time when preparing soup packs, but if I do cook 1 frozen soup pack in a rice cooker, takes about 60 mins
Serves: 6 frozen soup packs (each with 2 servings)
Ingredients
Note that this portioning makes 1 frozen pack of soup (that serves 2 people)
- 1/4 rounded brown coconut flesh
- 1/2 full chicken thigh
- 5 frozen (or fresh or prepackaged chestnuts)
- 6 dried red dates
- 6 dried longans
- 6 dried baby scallops
- 6 dried wolfberries (or goji berries)
- 1 sealable vacuum soup bag
Preparing the soup packs
- Prepare your chicken thighs by cutting them smaller pieces
- In a shallow pan, you can pan fry the chicken on medium heat allowing the outsides to fully brown (there is a warning here that the chicken may not be fully cooked)
- If you’re using dried scallops, you can also optionally pan fry them on low heat with a bit of oil until they are golden brown to create a more fragrant taste
- Poke a hole and drain your coconut (you can watch this video on “How to prepare coconuts for Chinese soups“
- Using a hammer in a safe place, break open the coconut and extract the flesh (I use these crab or seafood eating tools)
- Also measure out all the Chinese herbs into separate bowls, that way it’s much easier to distribute as you make your soup packs.
- Using your soup bags, stack your ingredients starting with the meat first and then I will sprinkle the herbs around the gaps in between and then the coconut on top, sliding them in between spaces as well
- Using your vacuum sealer, seal each pack and then freeze immediately for usage later.
EQUIPMENT USED FOR MAKING FROZEN SOUP PACKS
I get this question a lot, especially as I am now making more clips of these soup packs as showcased above. The real additional equipment you’ll need is the vacuum sealer and bags. You can most certainly boil these in pots as well. I would love to hear your comments on how this is going and how you’re finding the different equipment. My house has now turned into a soup factory – literally! LOL.
Start with a low cost option that also comes with a few pre-sealed bags. You really don’t need anything fancy to do this job!
These come in handy especially as you finish the ones that come with the starter kit. And I tend to give a lot of my soup packs to friends! HOORAY!
I get this question a lot about which rice cooker I am using. It is a 1 L (5 cups) one that I use in both HK and Toronto. Amazing product!
Amazing product in both usability and durability. Comes in many colours! I’ve used this to ladle congee into freezer bags – highly recommend it! To freeze congee in bulk.
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