Healing Chicken and Rice Soup

Chicken noodle soup has been cast as the ultimate healing food in America for many decades. Recovering from a nasty head cold? Here, eat a bowl of Mom’s chicken noodle soup! On the mend after a bout with the stomach flu? But of course, your first solid food must be chicken noodle soup! 

This past week, I came down with my first cold of the season. And it was a bear of a cold: runny nose, sore throat, too congested to breathe or eat without having to gasp for air—the whole nine yards. Having grown up in a home where chicken noodle soup was our sick day default meal, I found myself yearning for a piping hot bowl of it. 

My nutritional knowledge is a bit more robust now than when I was a kid growing up in North Carolina, and after looking over a couple of classic chicken noodle soup recipes, I couldn’t help but think: How on earth is this supposed to make me feel better? Chicken broth has plenty of restorative properties from the vegetables and chicken bones from which it’s made, but beyond that, a classic chicken noodle soup frankly doesn’t contain much in the way of healing ingredients. 

So I turned to my refrigerator and cabinets in search of ingredients that would serve two purposes: They needed to create a delicious, craveable soup, and they also needed to restore my health. Oh, and I needed to make this soup in under an hour, before my nine-month-old woke up from his nap. 

Find the full article on The Epoch Times.

Healing Chicken and Rice Soup

Servings 4 to 6 people

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp unsalted butter or olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 4 cloves, grated
• 1 (2-inch piece) ginger, peeled and grated
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 7 cups chicken stock
• 1 1/2 cups sushi rice
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 3 cups chopped winter greens (spinach, swiss chard, kale, beet greens, etc.)
• Juice of 3 limes, plus more wedges for serving
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
• Optional: cilantro, toasted peanuts, and coconut

Instructions

• Melt butter in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Cook onion for 4 to 5 minutes, until soft and translucent. Add garlic, ginger, and turmeric and cook for an additional 30 seconds.
• Add chicken thighs, chicken stock, rice, and salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 25 minutes.
• Remove the chicken to a holding plate. Use two forks to shred. Fish out the ginger slices and discard.Stir the shredded chicken, greens, lime juice, and pepper into the soup. You can enjoy it immediately, or if you have time, cover the soup and refrigerate, and the rice will continue to absorb the liquid and the soup will thicken. If it gets too thick, just stir in more broth!
• Enjoy the soup with a bit of cilantro and a sprinkle of toasted peanuts and coconut, if desired.

• 2 tbsp unsalted butter or olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 4 cloves, grated
• 1 (2-inch piece) ginger, peeled and grated
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 7 cups chicken stock
• 1 1/2 cups sushi rice
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 3 cups chopped winter greens (spinach, swiss chard, kale, beet greens, etc.)
• Juice of 3 limes, plus more wedges for serving
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
• Optional: cilantro, toasted peanuts, and coconut

Notes

Cooking Tips

If using spinach as the leafy green in your soup, do not use baby spinach! It becomes slimy and unappealing when wilted into soup. Use regular spinach, typically found in bundles in the refrigerated vegetable section at the store.

As your soup sits, the rice will continue to soak up the broth, becoming thicker and thicker. If you want to loosen it up, add a splash of stock when you re-warm it.

Looking ahead, this soup is a great way to use up leftover Thanksgiving turkey! Just shred the turkey and use it in place of the shredded chicken.

Author: Caroline Chambers