How to Make a Warming Chicken Herbal Soup to Replenish Qi & Blood, Fight Fatigue & Boost Energy!
Soup Name: A warming and healing chicken herbal soup (all the options!)
Traditional Chinese Name: 清雞湯 (qīng jī tāng). The direct translation is clear chicken soup, although this soup name refers to a variety of chicken soups. In general this name is for the clearest of chicken soups, although in this soup, it’s drank without eating the herbs.
Nature: Very warm
Taste: Sweet
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How to make this warming healing chicken soup!
One of the more common herbal healing soups is made with chicken (and sometimes, both chicken and pork together for more flavor). There are a variety of herbs that blend nicely with chicken, however, the key thing to note is that the herbal ingredients are often WARM in nature.
These warm ingredients include:
- Dried red dates – helps with fatigue, tonifies spleen and stomach and blood
- Dried licorice root – This neutral spleen supporting herb helps tonify Qi, so perfect to get that body’s engine going
- Fresh ginger – expels cold and warms the body, circulates Qi around body, relieves pain
- Dried ginger peel – often used in foot soaks to dispel wind and cold from the body (especially during post partum)
- Dried logans (optional) – nourishes blood, relieves mental fatigue
- Dried reishi mushrooms – super herb in TCM (and highly prized in Hong Kong), neutral, tonifies the Qi and calms the spirit
- Codonoposis root – Clears fluids, supports and tonifies lung and spleen Qi, helps with fatigue
- Dried wolfberries (optional) – tonifies liver and kidneys, supports eyes, moistens the lungs
What’s involved?
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 2 hours
Total time: 2 hrs 5 mins
Serves: 3 bowls
Ingredients
- 500 g of chicken breast (keep whole or slice that it fits into your soup pot). I will often use it from frozen and just drop it in.
Pick and choose ANY of these will do. Pick more than one, pick them all – the choice is yours! Create your own!
- 5 whole dried red dates (pitted) (红枣 hóng zǎo)
- 5 dried dragon eyes fruit (龍眼 lóng yǎn)
- 3 slices of fresh ginger (薑 jiāng)
- 2 dried codonoposis root (deng shen or 党參)
- 3 pieces of dried licorice root (甘草 gān cǎo)
- 3 slices of dried reishi mushrooms (靈芝 líng zhī)
- 4 cups of water
Equipment
- Use a ceramic or glass pot. This is the traditional way to boil and cook traditional Chinese medicine and herbs because these materials do not interact with the pot, where stainless steel or metal pots may.
Cooking Instructions
- In a ceramic or glass pot, add in your chicken breast and any of the dried warming ingredients of choice.
- Add in 4 cups of water and cover.
- Turn on the heat to high until that comes to a boil.
- Reduce heat to a low boil so that it barely bubbles and let that sit for 2 hours.
- Serve and enjoy!
The back story to this specific soup is that it was designed to:
- Help recover and replenish post menstruation
- Increase yang deficiency and rebalance the body
- Warm the body and improve blood and Qi flow
- Support older women and men to harmonize yin and yang in the body (especially women 40+ and men 50+)
- Reduce stress and relax the shen (spirit)
You can explore this article on “what it means to have cold hands and feet” and how this soup can help!
Would love to hear if you have any further suggestions and thoughts in the comments below!
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