This is the ultimate chilly weather soup. Inspired by my mother in law’s delicious turmeric chicken soup, this gingery version makes frequent appearances in our rotation all winter long. It’s easy to make, and you’ll usually have most of the ingredients you need on hand—just pick up a couple turmeric roots on your next grocery trip to have ready for when the mood strikes.
As with traditional chicken soup recipes, you first make the broth with a whole chicken and aromatics. Then the fun begins, and you can then add color, texture, and lots of flavor to your soup with grated veggies.
This is my go-to soup when I'm feeling stuffy or under the weather. There's nothing like a steamy, rich broth with ginger to make me feel clear again.
Benefits of Flavorful Rhizomes Like Ginger and Turmeric
People have long used ingredients like ginger and turmeric in teas, extracts, in culinary applications, and in capsules for a wide variety of purposes.
Ginger
A lot of people regularly incorporate ginger for its potential health benefits. Ginger has been used all over the world for centuries for a range of ails including nausea, inflammation, pain, and for its antioxidant properties. It is worth including in a steaming bowl of chicken soup just for its flavorful, warming brightness.
Turmeric
People reach for turmeric when they have issues with joint pain, digestive upset, fever, respiratory issues, and more. What works for some people may not work for others, but it still adds vibrant color and an earthy depth to this chicken soup recipe.
Ginger Turmeric Chicken Soup Recipe
Ingredients
For the chicken and broth:
3.5-4 lb whole chicken
3 carrots
3 stalks celery
¼-½ onion
3 knobs peeled turmeric
2-3 inch piece of peeled ginger
2 cloves garlic
handful of peppercorns
1 tsp salt
14-16 cups of water (may be more or less depending on your pot size)
For the soup:
5 Tbsp butter or avocado oil
½ cup grated onion
1½ cups grated celery
2 cups grated carrots
3 cups grated zucchini
1½ cups grated Japanese sweet potato (or regular potato)
1-2 knobs of turmeric, peeled and grated
½ cup cilantro
Salt to taste
Lemon wedges, for serving
Directions
Place your whole chicken in a large stock pot. Fill the pot with water until the chicken is fully submerged, which for our pot was about 14-16 cups.
Cut the carrots and celery in 2-3 pieces. Cut the turmeric, ginger and onion into chunks and smash the garlic.
Add the carrots, celery, onion, turmeric, ginger, garlic, peppercorns and salt to the pot.
Heat over medium high heat to bring the liquid to a boil. Once the liquid comes to a boil, you can gently skim off any scum that floats to the surface.
Once the liquid is maintaining a healthy simmer, cover the pot and allow the chicken to simmer for about an hour, reducing heat as needed to keep the water just simmering.
After an hour, flip the chicken over and then return the cover to the pot. Simmer for an additional 45-60 minutes, or until the chicken easily comes apart when you pull it out of the pot using tongs.
While the chicken simmers, this is a good time to prepare the soup vegetables. Use a box grater to grate your onion, celery, carrot, zucchini, and potato, plus the turmeric. (See Recipe Notes for tips.)
When the chicken is fall-off-the-bone tender, remove all of the chicken from the pot with tongs and set aside to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, carefully strain the broth and remove (and discard) the aromatics and veggies.
Once cool enough to handle, pick all of the chicken off of the bones. Set aside.
In the empty pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Once melted and bubbly, add your grated onion, celery and carrots. Stir with a spoon and sauté for 2-3 minutes, or until they’re soft.
Add your zucchini and sweet potatoes and continue stirring until soft. Add the broth back to the pot and bring up to a simmer. Add the shredded chicken and grated turmeric.
Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Allow it to simmer for 5-10 minutes. Taste and adjust salt as needed.
Remove the soup from the heat and stir in the chopped cilantro. Ladle the soup into bowls and top with more cilantro. Serve with lemon wedges. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes:
When grating the onions, celery, carrots, zucchini and potatoes, use the large holes on your box grater. When grating the turmeric, use a microplane or the tiny grating section on a box grater.
For a richer soup, don’t bother straining the chicken fat that accumulates on the top of the soup. You could also add more butter to the pot when sautéing your veggies.
If you don’t like cilantro, you can use parsley or dill instead.
You can use a pressure cooker or Instant Pot instead of preparing the broth on the stovetop, but I found that the Instant Pot just isn’t large enough to fit the amount of broth, chicken and veggies I wanted to add to the pot and so prefer to use a large stock pot.
This is a BIG pot of soup so it will make plenty to feed a family and have leftovers to boot. It also freezes well for quick lunches later!
Recipe created for Mark’s Daily Apple by Priscilla Chamessian. Priscilla is a food blogger, recipe developer, and personal chef based in Missouri specializing in low-carb, Paleo, gluten-free, keto, vegetarian, and low FODMAP cooking. Follow her food adventures on Instagram and Pinterest.
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* This blog reflects my personal views and opinions and isn’t intended as medical advice, but I hope it will be informative and inspiring as you pursue a healthy, fulfilling life.