Home-cooked anti-inflammatory chicken soup

Make this anti-inflammatory chicken soup after a cold day – it’s filling, healthy and satisfying. This anti-inflammatory recipe is solid for dinner and makes around 4 servings.

We were pretty surprised that for the last few months we never craved soup. Like we love soup, it’s our thing. Give us some soup, put some black pepper on it and we're a happy person. We learned how to make soup first when we were 14. Our first few attempts turned into something like potato mash and nobody wanted to eat them, but as with everything – we've gotten better over the years.

It wasn’t until the last few days of 2019 when it got cold that we were reminded soups actually exist. So on the first day of this year we decided to make our favorite chicken soup, but with an anti-inflammatory twist. We added some extra herbs, spices and vegetables to make this chicken soup healthy, filling and satisfying.

Making Chicken Soup From Scratch

One thing we always do with chicken soup is that we actually cook whole chicken thighs, then remove the bones while keeping the broth. It’s a lengthy procedure and not glamorous, but we always do it like this, because we get a reliable broth this way.

While the chicken thighs are cooking in some salted water, we chop our vegetables. We cook the onion and the potato together with the chicken, because we don’t like raw onion or raw potato in soups. We would also add the turmeric, mint and salt, so that everything can cook together.

After around 30 minutes of cooking, the chicken is most likely ready. So we just fish it out, put it in a bowl with cold filtered water, let it cool off a little and start removing the bones. Not a fun part, but one that’s necessary.

When the chicken is done, we add it back into the cooking pot together with the water we used for cooling it down. Then we add more vegetables and cook for 5-10 more minutes.

Then it’s time to eat!

Anti-Inflammatory Chicken Soup Ingredients

So there was a study quite a while ago (in the forgotten 2000s) and the researchers found out that chicken soup actually has a mild anti-inflammatory effect and that might be the reason why it’s a good remedy for upper respiratory tract infections like the common cold. You can find that study here.

With that in mind, we wanted to make a soup that has some extra anti-inflammatory ingredients and here they are:

• Turmeric is probably the most famous healthy spice right now and it’s well known for being an anti-inflammatory. The pigment that gives turmeric its bright yellow color is called curcumin and it’s been shown to reduce inflammation on several levels, as well as reduce blood glucose levels in diabetic patients. Curcumin has also been suggested to prevent cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, obesity, arteriosclerosis and metabolic syndrome. Adding some black pepper to a turmeric dish will make the curcumin more bioavailable, so don’t skip on the “salt and pepper to taste” part when serving this soup.
• Ginger. Pretty much like turmeric, ginger is known for its healing and anti-inflammatory properties and has been used to treat digestive issues for centuries.
• Mint. Like most herbs and spices mint is rich in antioxidants, low in calories and has anti-inflammatory properties.
• Cauliflower. Like kale, cabbage and broccoli cauliflower is a source of glucosinolates and isothiocyanates which are shown to have anti-cancer properties.
  

Nightshades?

So if you’re not familiar with this: nightshades are a small group of satisfying vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and peppers. Now, these vegetables are healthy and anti-inflammatory for most of us in moderate amounts – there have been many studies that show these vegetables actually reduce inflammation. HOWEVERR, with some people, nightshades might cause unwanted reactions and worsen inflammatory symptoms. Like for example with some arthritis patients. You can read more about this here.

So as you’ll see we used one potato in this soup. If you do know nightshades don’t make you feel your best, don’t use a potato. Instead, you can add some lentils, whole grains like quinoa or a sweet potato if you like it.

the anti-inflammatory chicken soup with broccoli

Update 2026: We recently made the same soup leaving out the cauliflower and the potato. We wanted the soup a bit simpler and lighter (not that it’s heavy…). This time, we used a pressure cooker, which sped up the process incredibly. We wanted to keep it simple so that we can add extra vegetables whenever we're reheating. We love broccoli and spinach in soups, but we don’t like them when they’re overcooked. So, when reheating your serving in the cooking pot – add some chopped broccoli, spinach or fresh herbs and heat up for about 3 minutes, so that they’re not raw, but also not soggy. We loved the soup this way and we didn’t miss the potato at all. Poor potato, got so much hate here.

We hope you like the soup if you decide to make it. Meanwhile, we've gotten a bit of a cold and have been having this soup as our main meal for the last few days, but weirdly we still like it.

• Yield: 4
• Prep: 10 minutes
• Cook: 40 minutes
• Total: 50 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 pound chicken thighs (bone in)
• 1 potato, peeled and chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 Tbsp mint, dried
• 1 tbsp ginger, grated
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 cup cauliflower, chopped

Method

1. Cook the chicken thighs in about 4-5 cups of salted filtered water in a small cooking pot. In the meantime, chop the vegetables.
2. When the water starts to boil add the onion, the potato, turmeric and mint. Let everything cook at medium-high with lid on.
3. After about 20-30 minutes of cooking the chicken thighs should be done - it's time to take the meat off the bones. To do this take out the chicken thighs and put them into a small bowl with cool filtered water, so they can cool off. Take the meat off the bone, discard the bones and shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces. We used our hands for this glamorous activity, but the chicken is hot, so be careful!). We took the chicken thighs out of the cooking pot one at a time and used a small bowl for this "fun" procedure.
4. Once the chicken is done, put it and the broth that formed in the bowl into the cooking pot.
5. Add the carrot, ginger and the cauliflower, add salt and pepper to taste and cook for 5-10 more minutes.
6. Serve immediately and keep leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge.