Chinese 5 Spice Chicken Noodle Soup
This warming soup comes together in the slow cooker with a rich broth, tender chicken and delicious noodles.
Full of nourishing, warming spices, protein and iron from the chicken, plus collagen from the bone broth and energy from the noodles, this is such a winter winner!
The Chinese red dates are an optional extra that can be picked up at asian grocers. In herbal medicine, we call them Zizyphus, and they are excellent for the nervous system. I sneak Zizyphus into herbal formulas when I'm seeing clients with anxiety, sleep onset insomnia, stress with heart palpitations and stress sweats.
Ingredients
1000g chicken drumsticks
1500mL water
1 tsp Chinese 5 spice
2 carrots
1 leek
1 tsp sea salt
180g ramen noodles
2 star anises
1 tsp ginger (freshly grated is best!)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
6 Chinese red dates (optional)
Method
Slice the leek, wash any dirt from between the layers. Peel and cut the carrots into large chunks, then add both the leek and the carrot to a slow cooker.
Add the chicken drumsticks, drizzle olive oil over the chicken then add the Chinese 5 spice on top.
Add the star anise, red dates, ginger, salt and water.
Cook on low for 5 hours. Depending on the slow cooker, the chicken may be cooked sooner, check that the meat falls easily off the bones. If the chicken is ready sooner, you can take the meat off the bones and set aside, placing the bones back in the soup to cook further until ready to serve.
15 minutes before serving, take the bones out, placing only the chicken meat back in and add the noodles. The noodles will soak up a lot of the broth, you can reduce or add more noodles, depending on how many hungry people you have to feed!
Serve hot. Yum!
