Chinese Ginseng Chicken Soup (4-ingredients)

A Dutch oven full of Chinese ginseng chicken soup, goji berries and dried jujubes.

5 from 7 votes

Chinese Ginseng Chicken Soup (4-ingredients)

This Chinese Ginseng Chicken Soup is really easy to make but so delicious that you can't tell it only uses 4 ingredients! Plus, it's made in 1 pot and mostly passive cooking.

Prep Time15

Cook Time2 30

Course: Main Course, Soup

Cuisine: Chinese

Servings: people

Calories: 1771kcal

Author: Zen

Equipment

Large pot

Ingredients

8 Cups water
1 whole chicken (900g or 31.7 oz) ideally fresh not frozen, cleaned. If the neck and feet are attached, leave them on as they have a lot of collagen to give the soup body. Don't fret if your chicken is bigger- your soup will have more flavor! You can also substitute with chicken parts that make up the same weight if you can't get an entire chicken- just make sure there are lots of wings to provide gelatin for the soup.
8 jujubes soaked for 5 minutes to soften and remove dust. also known as Chinese red dates, seeds removed
2 Tablespoons sliced American ginseng about 7g/ 0.25 oz
3 Tablespoons goji berries briefly soaked for 5 minutes to soften and remove dust.
1 teaspoon salt or to taste

Instructions

Optional: blanching the chicken

For pork, this step is essential but it's optional for chicken as there isn't as much dirt and scum. You could technically just skim off the scum produced instead of blanching first.
If you choose to blanch first, place the chicken in a pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil then throw away the water. Rinse the chicken in cold water to remove the dirt then it's ready to be made into soup!

Cooking the soup

Place the chicken in the pot with the water, ginseng and jujubes then bring to the boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer over low heat for a minimum of 2.5- 3 hours. (Do check in from time to time to see if more water is needed. I didn't need to add any, but your "low heat" may be different from mine!)
10 minutes before you want to turn off the fire, add the goji berries.
Season right before turning off the heat (if you salt too early, the soup may become too salty after the water evaporates off.)
Note: if you simmer for more than 2.5 hours, please check the water levels to see if you need to add extra water!

Notes

Storage: Extras can be kept in the fridge for 2-3 days. Bring to the boil and make sure the chicken is warmed through before serving.

Tip #1: It's easier to cut the chicken into parts once it's been softened after all the simmering so I tend to cook the whole chicken before cutting. Some recipes call for cutting first, which can help to release more gelatinous into the soup as more bone is exposed.

Tip #2: If you can get it, use black-skinned Silkie chicken or Cornish hens instead of the regular chicken. To see what the darker meat looks like, click here.

Note: the nutritional information is an estimate automatically calculated using the WPRM recipe maker and I am not responsible for its accuracy.

Nutrition