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I LOVE SOUP!!  Growing up, my mom would make me a whole bunch of different kinds of herbal soups and bone broths and that’s carried through my current life -- I make a large batch of soup or bone broth every week when I’m home and slowly drink them as quick and easy breakfasts or lunches throughout the week.  This is one of my go-to bone broths and will probably be the easiest of all my Heritage recipes.  

While I usually try to stay away from using modern equipment in the Heritage recipes*, it’s almost impossible to make this broth the way my ancestors would have.  My great grandmother, for example, would have had a kitchen with a large pot that’s hanging over a fire all day that opens up to an opening in the ceiling; seeing as how I live in apartments….that’s not really possible lol.  This is why I use an Instant Pot or any slow cooker -- you don’t want this to ever achieve a noticeable, rolling boil.  You CAN use a large Dutch oven over a stove, but I find it’s way more difficult to control keeping such a low temperature for a long period of time.  If you have any kind of slow cooker, you can simply drop everything in, set it, and leave without worrying.  The key thing is we’re slowly extracting the essence from the whole chicken and infusing it with the aromatics and herbs, so this broth will have a much more concentrated and rich flavor you’ll never find in traditional American-style chicken noodle soups or those Tetra-packs of chicken broth you get from the grocery store.  

Another important thing to note is that after the first round of slow cooking (remember, no boiling!), you’ll remove the spent aromatics and herbs and crush up the chicken.  This is to open up even the bone marrow and extract more nutritious goodness from the chicken.  This is not the kind of chicken soup where you eat the meat.  I mean you can...but it’ll be so dry because we’re extracting EVERYTHING from the chicken.  However, if you have dogs, you can remove some of the meat after the first round and soak the meat a little before giving it to them! 

This soup is deceptively flavorful and rich (unlike the watery-ass chicken broth you buy at the store or get in regular chicken noodle soups) and can be enjoyed as is.  I’ve dropped some other ideas on ways to enjoy this bone broth in the How to Enjoy section at the end, too (:

* One of the critical points of the Heritage section is to pass on techniques and skills that are being slowly lost due to whitewashing of palates and cultural appropriation

Total cook time ~5-6 hours but active prep time is only ~15 minutes!

• 1 whole, organic chicken (mine average 3¾ - 4¼ lbs)

• Aromatics*:

  • 4 scallions (average 2½ oz)

  • 3 oz ginger, peeled and cut into ½ - 1” chunks

  • 16 cloves of garlic (~ 1¾ - 2 oz), peeled but left whole

• 10 - 11 cups of water (or enough to cover chicken)

• 2½ TBSP Himalayan pink salt (any grind size is fine)

• 1½ tsp ground white pepper

• Optional herbs and veggies:

  • 2 dried jujubes

  • Dried goji berries

  • Veggie of choice: preferably a heartier root veggie, like daikon, or my personal favorite for this soup, lotus root

• Special equipment: Instant Pot or slow cooker, fine mesh sieve, something strong to break up the chicken and bones (e.g. strong cocktail muddler, large wooden spoon, potato masher)

* This is for a very intensely flavored broth (aka the max of each I would use, which is why I added more exact oz-based units); pare back on any if you want less ginger, garlic, and/or scallion flavor

Prepare your soup for slow cooking:

1. Peel the garlic and ginger; cut up the ginger into ½ - 1” chunks but keep the garlic cloves whole

2. Trim the scallions and cut them in half

3. If you’re adding any veggies, you can prep that after the soup has been set to slow cook

First round of slow cooking:

1. Split the garlic, ginger, and scallion into two even portions — put one of these half portions into the chicken cavity and the other half directly into the pot; add the whole chicken into the pot and add your salt, white pepper, dried jujubes (if using), and water

2. Set your Instant Pot to “Slow Cook” for 3 hours and leave be; prep your veggie now (if using)

Second round of slow cooking:

1. Once the first 3 hours are done, open the Instant Pot and remove your aromatics (ginger, garlic, scallions, jujubes) — those are spent now and won’t add any more flavor

2. Salvage any meat that isn’t too dry; rinse or soak meat in water if giving to your doggo (to remove salt); quickly taste for saltiness and add more if needed

3. Using a potato masher, large wooden spoon, or even a cocktail muddler, forcefully crush up the chicken and its bones%

4. Add your prepped veggie (if using) and set the cooker to Slow Cook again for another 2 hours (ok to leave on “Keep Warm” overnight)

% This breaks up all the bones to get to the nutritious marrow and collagen in the chicken’s bones

Final work:

1. Set a large fine mesh strainer over a large bowl and begin removing the chicken into this mesh strainer; let this sit and strain because you’d be surprised how much broth would have been wasted

2. I do a final strain of the broth over a cheesecloth placed over a mesh strainer but this isn’t strictly necessary (I just like to strain out all the leftover bits floating in there); this soup will stay fresh in the fridge, covered, for one week

I usually spoon some out for breakfast and add some dried goji berries and another sprinkle of white pepper before heating it up. If made correctly, this soup will gelatinize in the fridge and this is a good sign! It means you extracted all that collagen and goodness from the bones.

Other ideas on how to use this soup:

• Add some more ginger and reduce this soup down; cook up some noodles and add a generous drizzle of toasted sesame oil just before serving as a noodle soup

• As a soup base for hot pot

• You can forgo all the aromatics, spices, and herbs to make homemade bone broth too

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