Warming, delicious, ethically pasture raised chicken soup with ginger, kombu and herbs! Simmered with an array of deeply nutrient dense herbs, greens, and sea vegetables that will go easy on your digestion and support the gut microbiome.

This is a variation of the kind of classic, healing, immune boosting, comforting chicken soup that your grandma might make. Chicken soup is often something that we only fall back on in times of acute illness or fatigue, but I enjoy this recipe so much that it’s a regular, preventative part of my meal rotations, especially during colder seasons. Soup is the ultimate comfort food, and it turns out that it’s pretty aligned with TCM (traditional Chinese medicine), too. Take care of your spleen and stomach with this warm and nourishing pasture raised chicken soup! Move over, canned and packaged, processed food-like products; anything that comes in a package simply cannot replicate the healing powers of a real soup made from scratch like this.
There’s just something about the simple combination of the chicken, lemon, ginger, fresh thyme and subtle chili spice that’s divine. The recipe itself is super simple, and very versatile. You can choose your own veggies as you please, there are really no limits… I’ve opted for a divine and delicious balance of anti-inflammatory organic local greens, carrots, Atlantic kombu seaweed, lemon, herbs, and ginger. You can always go classic with just carrots, celery, parsley, and rice (or other gluten-free) noodles.
We all know the immense benefits of properly sourced bone broth, and boiling the entire chicken will offer a hearty dose of gut healing properties and protective nutrients such as collagen, gelatin, glycine, and a rich store of beneficial minerals, a gift to the body you live in. We hope you enjoy this as much as we do!

You don’t even need to use chicken here, but proper sourcing is still imperative. Jim Harbaugh (former NCAA football coach) famously tells his players not to consume chicken as it’s a ‘nervous bird’, though there can be a difference in the energy of pasture raised chooks raised with love and care. Try it for yourself and see how that goes!
Pasture raised turkey is also a great alternative option and can offer a more well rounded nutrient profile. You can use the whole turkey if there’s room, or even just half, or a few drumsticks or wings in the soup instead. I recommend you source your chicken/turkey from an ethical local farmer you trust, pasture raised, freely roaming outdoors under the sun, and fed natural probiotics and organic feed (no soy or corn), and vegetable scraps, grass and various bugs from the unsprayed pasture. Even just one properly sourced chicken or turkey is incredibly economical, the meat can last an entire week and the bones can be simmered later as a highly nutrient dense, healing broth. Respect your body, avoid low quality chicken and all other commercially farmed animal foods whenever possible, proper nutrition is not a game.
Currently I source solely from Wild Meadows Farm Ontario. Use code ROOTTOSKY for $10 off your first order at wildmeadowsfarm.ca.
How to make this pasture raised chicken soup with ginger, kombu and herbs:
- Heat up your favourite nutritious cooking fat in a large soup pot and get the aromatics going: shallot, leek, carrots, celery, then garlic, ginger, turmeric, chili flakes, thyme, and rosemary.
- Add the whole chicken with the kombu and apple cider vinegar to help leach the precious minerals out of the bones, a common practice with all bone broths.
- Add filtered water, bring to a boil, then simmer for approximately 90-120+ minutes to really cook the bones through.
- Remove the chicken carefully, peel the meat off, and add it back to the pot along with the greens. Simmer until the greens melt.
- Remove from heat, add in the miso and apple cider vinegar for an extra dose of probiotics. Season with generous sea salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve with fresh parsley, thyme, and freshly squeezed lemon juice!
Tips to make this soup:
- The splash of apple cider vinegar helps draw the beneficial minerals out of the chicken bones. This is a common practice with bone broths in general.
- Boil and simmer the soup containing the bones thoroughly! You can even extend the recommended simmering time to 120 minutes or more! A diet full of solely muscle meats is a long term recipe for disaster, so make sure to mix it up with bone broth, organs and other parts of the animal over time for the most balanced nutritional profile.
- Mix it up! You can freely choose whatever veggies you can access or are in season! I recommend using at least one sea vegetable and one land vegetable.
- You can stir in 2 tsp organic miso paste towards the end as the soup simmers for an extra umami flavour dimension and probiotic dose.
- Organic miso is an incredibly beneficial food that can help with the digestion of wheat and rice due to its massive amounts of phytase that can break down essentially any plant food. Great pairing, if you ask me. Soybean miso is fine in my opinion as long as it’s organic, but chickpea or even barley/rice miso can work well, too, depending on your preference.
- Feel free to include noodles or rice of your choice, if you like. I tend to consume properly sourced grains only once in a blue moon. The only pasta I use is either legume based or sourced from Italy, certified organic, and ensuring the grains are not fortified with toxic iron filings (isolated lab-made “vitamins”).
- This recipe is inspired by ancient, traditional, medicinal Chinese ingredients and my own grandma’s cooking, but feel free to keep it as simple as you’d like!
- Fresh ginger root is pungent and heating, according to ancient Ayurvedic wisdom. It has a different post-digestive effect than dried ginger, though both are beneficial, kindle digestive fire, improve digestion, relieve nausea, and promote absorption and assimilation of nutrients. Ginger can improve circulation, relieve congestion, help break down blood clots and may aid in preventing heart attacks. It’s a great remedy for the common cold, cough and respiratory issues. I recommend using it.
- As usual, omit or replace any ingredients you don’t do well with!

Pasture Raised Chicken Soup with Ginger, Kombu and Herbs
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp grass fed and finished beef tallow or cooking fat of your choice: ghee, lard, coconut oil
- 1 large organic shallot
- 1 organic leek, thinly sliced
- 2 medium organic carrots, diced
- 2 stalks organic celery, chopped
- 6 cloves organic garlic, minced (yes, six)
- 2 inch piece of fresh organic ginger, peeled and minced frozen is ok too
- 2 tsp ground organic turmeric
- 1 tsp dried organic chili flakes or to taste
- 2 sprigs fresh organic thyme stems removed
- 1 tsp freshly chopped organic rosemary
- 1 whole organic pasture raised chicken frozen or thawed in the refrigerator
- 1 big piece of organic dried Atlantic kombu or sea vegetables of your choice, broken into pieces
- 2 tbsp raw organic apple cider vinegar for simmering the bones
- 6-8 cups fresh wild spring water, or enough to cover the chicken
- 1 1/2 cups shredded organic green cabbage
- 1 cup organic bok choy, cut into strips
- 1/3 cup fresh organic flat leaf parsley or celery greens, chopped
- 2 tsp organic chickpea miso combined with 2 tsp raw organic apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp dried organic goji berries, extra thyme and/or parsley to garnish
- sea salt and organic black pepper, to taste
- 1/2 freshly squeezed organic lemon to garnish
Instructions
- In a large soup pot over medium heat, heat up the tallow. Once melted, add the shallots, leek, carrots and celery. Sauté and stir the vegetables until the shallots are soft and translucent, about 4 minutes.
- Add the garlic, ginger, turmeric, chili flakes, thyme, and rosemary. Stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
- Carefully add the whole chicken, kombu pieces and apple cider vinegar, then fill the pot to cover the chicken as much as you can with filtered or spring water. Bring the water to a full boil for 10 minutes, cover with a lid, then lower to a simmer for 90-120 minutes.
- After 90 minutes, the chicken should be just about cooked. Carefully remove the chicken and place it on a tray to the side. Add the cabbage, bok choy, parsley and goji berries to the pot (or your choice of veggies), then stir and increase the heat to medium until it begins to simmer and the greens melt into the soup. In a small bowl using a fork, stir 2 tsp miso with 2 tsp apple cider vinegar until it turns into a runny paste, and set aside.
- As the soup simmers, remove chicken from the bones and shred all meat off of the chicken using your hands. Save the bones for making a separate broth in another recipe, or discard. Add the shreds back into the soup to simmer (the darker meat should be brown and not pink). The greens should now be cooked. Remove from heat and stir in the miso and apple cider vinegar paste.
- Season the soup generously with sea salt and pepper. Serve hot with freshly squeezed lemon juice and extra parsley and/or thyme.
Notes
- The splash of apple cider vinegar helps draw the beneficial minerals out of the chicken bones. This is a common practice with bone broths in general.
- Boil and simmer the soup containing the bones thoroughly! You can even extend the recommended simmering time to 120 minutes or more! A diet full of solely muscle meats is a long term recipe for disaster, so make sure to mix it up with bone broth, organs and other parts of the animal over time for the most balanced nutritional profile.
- Mix it up! You can freely choose whatever veggies you can access or are in season! I recommend using at least one sea vegetable and one land vegetable.
- You can stir in 2 tsp organic miso paste towards the end as the soup simmers for an extra umami flavour dimension and probiotic dose.
- As usual, replace or omit any ingredients you don’t get on with.
- To make this in a slow cooker, place all ingredients in the vessel, cover with spring water and a splash of raw apple cider vinegar to draw the minerals from the bones, and cook 10-12 hours (or overnight) so the broth becomes nice and gelatinous when cooled (this is a sure sign of a successful, nutrient-dense broth).
- If you are undermethylating, you can make a low histamine meat broth, such as this one.