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Anti-Inflammatory Ginger Chicken Soup is that soup that sets you right — perhaps after indulgent eating, if you’ve been sick or have aches and pains: Make a pot of this nourishing, warming, (even refreshing!), soup, and feel better! Or, enjoy to just maintain good health!
Make this recipe, and enjoy the soup that your body’s been craving.
This recipe also has an Instant Pot option.
What diets this soup works for
You don’t have to follow any diet in particular for this soup to fit the way you eat perfectly. Most of all, it’s Anti-Inflammatory. But it can be great for a variety of wellness diets because of its gentle, nourishing ingredients.
Depending on which main carb you choose to use: Gluten-free, Grain-free, Paleo, AIP, Whole30, Low FODMAP, GAPS, Ancestral and VAD.
Ingredients in Ginger Chicken Soup
This soup starts with an easy flavorful meat stock, that both cooks the chicken and creates the soothing broth.
To this, we add cooked veggies, carb of choice, herbs, fresh ginger root and optional fresh lemon juice.
Here’s the full list of not too many ingredients for an easy recipe:
- chicken thighs, boneless and skinless — But you can also use bone-in chicken if you don’t mind taking it off the bone after it’s cooked
- carrots — For VAD, white carrots.
- zucchini
- sea salt
- fresh rosemary, and/or fresh mint
- fresh ginger root
- whole lemons — cut in half to juice, but optional if you don’t eat lemons
- dill — dried, optional (I did not use this dried herb THIS time when photographing the recipe, but it’s another great flavor profile that’s convenient to add if you end up wanting to make a variation of the recipe without fresh herbs or because you love dill.)
- carb of choice — For Paleo, Low FODMAP and grain-free, use Jovial’s cassava pasta, or choose a veggie that’s gentle if you prefer or if cassava doesn’t agree with you. For Gluten-free, use rice or Jovial’s brown rice pasta. (For GF, you may even use rolled oats, which work well in savory recipes and are used thus in other countries more than the U.S.)
How to make Anti-Inflammatory Ginger Chicken Soup
- Place chicken in pot with water and sea salt. Cook according to recipe directions: Both stove top and Instant Pot options are given.
- Cook up carb of choice: either pasta (Paleo or Gluten-free), rice or veggie (if not low oxalate, parsnips are an example). Ask in the Comments if you need more ideas, or check the Anti-Inflammatory post.
- In low big soup pot or large deep sauté pan: Sauté carrots and zucchini. Then add broth, chopped (now cooked) chicken, and remaining ingredients: cooked carb, fresh herbs, ginger and fresh lemon juice when you’re ready to serve.
Easy! Three steps, but they all come together really simply — yet with vivacious flavor!
What makes this soup anti-inflammatory
The ingredients in this soup are carefully chosen to be anti-inflammatory. Read this article to learn more about the criteria of which ingredients got cut from the list and which ones passed and why!
In short, this soup is free of nightshades, lectins, estrogenic foods, high oxalate and high FODMAP foods, plus more.
Anti-Inflammatory Ginger Chicken Soup
Equipment
- pot for cooking chicken and broth or Instant Pot
- pot for cooking pasta or rice in
- pot for sautéing and making whole batch of soup in (big pot that's low or big pan that's deep)
Ingredients
- 6 cups water
- 3 to 4.5 lbs chicken thighs boneless and skinless -- But you can also use bone-in chicken if you don't mind taking it off the bone after it's cooked.
- 1 Tablespoon + 3 teaspoons, divided sea salt
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 5 carrots sliced thinly. Use white carrots for VAD.
- 4 zucchini peeled, quartered and sliced
- 2 teaspoons dill dried, optional (I did not use this dried herb THIS time when photographing the recipe, but it's another great flavor profile that's conveniently added if you end up wanting to make a variation of the recipe without fresh herbs or because you love dill.)
- several sprigs fresh rosemary and/or fresh mint: chop the rosemary, and slice the mint (Additionally, and optional: I also leave both herbs whole and allow them to steep and add beauty to the big pot.)
- ¼ cup fresh ginger grated or minced
- 8 oz Paleo or Gluten-free pasta (or for veggie carb of choice, adjust amount): Paleo pasta like this, or Gluten-free pasta, or rice, or another cooked carb you know you do well with, preferably from this list of Anti-Inflammatory foods
- 2 to 3 whole lemons cut in half to juice
Instructions
- For stove top: Place chicken in pot with lid. Add water and 1 Tablespoon + 2 teaspoons sea salt. (Try to have the water cover the meat. If not, move the meat around so it's lower in the pot.) Cover pot with lid, and turn heat to high. As soon the water begins to simmer, reduce heat to whatever temperature maintains a simmer, medium-low or low. Simmer 15 minutes, then turn off heat.
- Instant Pot: Place chicken in pot with lid. Add water and 1 Tablespoon + 2 teaspoons sea salt. (Make sure the water covers the meat.) Seal lid, and close steam valve. Depending on which model IP you have: press "Manual" or "High Pressure" button, and adjust time to 4 minutes (yes, only FOUR minutes), or "Poultry" button, in which case the time panel will display 15 minutes; so reduce it manually with the down button. When timer goes off, do a QPR, or allow pressure to release naturally, whichever you prefer.
- Use tongs or a slotted spoon to remove chicken to a large cutting board. I prefer to cut each thigh horizontally to end up with chunks, or you can roughly shred the chicken with 2 forks if you prefer.
WHILE CHICKEN COOKS
- ONE: Choose and cook your carb: This can be cassava pasta for Paleo (I recommend the Orzo shape for this soup, but any shape you like is great.) For Gluten-free, it can be rice or Jovial's rice pasta. You may also choose another carb with which you know your body does well.
- TWO: In large deep pan or low pot (that will end up holding the entire soup recipe, so it needs to be big), add olive oil, carrots and ½ teaspoon sea salt. Sauté over medium heat about 10 minutes, until browned and mostly cooked. Add zucchini (and optional dried dill, if using) and final ½ teaspoon salt. Cook additional 10 minutes, allowing zucchini to break down a bit; lower heat if needed.
- Add broth, chicken, carb of choice, fresh rosemary and/or fresh mint and fresh ginger. Heat to very hot, and stir gently. For those who can have it: Add the fresh juice of just one lemon, then taste. If the soup needs to sit a bit over low heat before being served, wait to add any more lemon juice until just before serving (because the flavor becomes less strong with time). To taste, you may add more lemon juice, or just the 1 lemon, when ready to serve.
- Stir one final time, and serve.
Nutrition
You can Pin this soup here:
Heather Hollinger says
This sounds amazing! I will have to try it soon. Have you ever heard of anyone being sensitive to meat stock (not bone broth)? I made chicken broth without FODMAPs (just salt, pepper and paprika) and drank about a cup a day for 4-5 days and had to stop because it began making me feel nauseous, pain in my solar plexus, extremely full (even though it was the only thing I had first thing in the morning), and tired for a couple hours. Pretty discouraging to have something so healthy and easy to digest make you feel so terrible.
Megan says
Hi Heather, was the broth you made a long cooked bone broth or short cooked stock? What stands out to me first is the pepper and paprika. Pepper is high in copper and aggravates many people due to it causing inflammation. And paprika also causes inflammation, plus it’s very high in vitamin A, which is now being implicated in all kinds of issues ranging from digestion to liver symptoms (and more). The better experiment would be to make a broth (preferably meat stock, because it’s the most gentle) without those spices to see how it makes you feel. I’m sorry that happened. Yes, broths are not always good for us, and we have been misled that they are super food for everyone, but there are many traps that can cause issues. Also, secondly, nausea is a sign of bile flow issues, so if you try meat stock or broth again, I’d consider taking it with either digestive support (some fresh lemon juice or ACV in water, if tolerated, or bitters) and/or 1 to 2 activated charcoal capsules, the first of which will support bile flow, and the second of which will absorb toxins in the bile.
Heather Hollinger says
Oh thank you for your reply! I make the bitters you suggested but had not taken them with the broth. I will try that. I thought you were not supposed to take charcoal with food because it absorbed the nutrients?
Megan says
Hi Heather, my doctor doesn’t feel it’s a worthy concern. He suggests if people are worried, they can separate charcoal and food, but the benefit here is more important: absorbing toxins from bile. We can bet that charcoal has more important things to cling onto than our nutrients.
Heather Hollinger says
For the meat stock I cooked a whole chicken in the pressure cooker for 30 minutes, then I put the bones (which still had some meat and cartilage) back in the pressure cooker, added water and cooked for 15 minutes.
Megan says
I would skip that second step in future, and don’t feel like you’re wasting the goodness of the bones. Just glean the meat, embrace the gelatin-rich stock it already made, and move on. The longer cooked bones can create a problem for some people.
Heather Hollinger says
Ok, that makes sense. And I wonder if I should take charcoal every time I eat meat? If I eat too much meat I get the same reaction. I have to make sure that only 2 meals a day contain meat.
Also, I sent you an email about consulting! Would love to do some consulting with you if you are still doing it 🙂
Megan says
If it helps, then it’s addressing part of the issue, so that could be a good partial solution that’s even gentle long term. Longer term full solution-wise, I would want to address liver health (if it were for me). I’m so sorry I didn’t get your email. I don’t see it. But, I am taking a break from consulting due to our recent adoption. I can point you instead to either Dr. Smith or the DIY version of his network where you pay a small amount to be a part of his community, and can pursue liver and digestive health and detox with a support network that is very helpful and active. You can find that info here if you’re interested: https://nutritiondetective.com/ I hope you find it helpful! And I’m in the network, so I’d see you in there. 🙂
Chris M says
Do the pictures show summer squash in the soup or is that just peeled zucchini?
Megan says
Peeled zucchini.