Carrot Ginger Chicken Soup with Miso

The ultimate flu season comfort food. Seriously, this shit feels medicinal.

Ingredients - serves 3-4

Grass-fed butter or ghee for sautéing

1/2 yellow onion -- I prefer thinly slicing over dicing

1 thumb fresh ginger, or 1.5 tsp powder

3 cloves garlic

2 carrots, 1/2 inch diagonal cut

1 quart homemade chicken stock -- this part is critical. No watery boxed stuff.

~1 cup shredded chicken

2 tbsp white miso paste

Rice noodles

How It's Done

This is a great way to use up a big pot of chicken stock. We simmered a soup hen for a few hours, then strained the stock and stored the meat. This recipe is part of what came out of that. A good chicken stock is made with lots of aromatics (garlic, onions, peppercorns, etc.) and should be somewhat gelatinous when chilled.

Heat a generous pat of butter in a soup pot. Saute onions on medium-low heat until very fragrant and translucent, about 3 minutes. Add ginger and garlic. Here you could also add one seeded and minced Thai chili if you want some nice heat, but I just opted for a generous dose of freshly ground black pepper. Let these aromatics cook for 5 minutes or so.

Deglaze the pot with chicken stock. You may want to add a little more than a quart -- it depends on how many people you are feeding. Bring to a boil, add carrots, and simmer on high for about 20 minutes, or until the carrots are tender. Add shredded chicken and reduce to low simmer. If you have time, letting this sit over very low heat for an hour or so will produce a much better tasting soup. Salt to taste.

Boil a pot of water a boil. Cook your rice noodles according to package instructions. Quantity depends, again, on how many people you're feeding. I like to buy the noodles that come in nests, so portioning is easy. Take care not to overcook your noodles -- you want them slightly chewy when you drain them, as you are adding them to hot broth. Drain and portion into bowls.

When you're ready to serve, make sure your soup is not boiling or even simmering strongly. Too much heat will damage the nutritional quality and flavor of the miso. Place miso in a strainer and stir into soup using chopsticks -- as you would when making miso soup.

Serve immediately. Pour soup over rice noodles. You could garnish this with cilantro or bean sprouts and it would be delicious.