Ginger-Chicken Soup, Almost Instantly
By Liza Schoenfein March 2, 2018
If you don’t have an Instant Pot and would like to make this soup the traditional way, combine all ingredients in a large pot, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer 2½ –3 hours before continuing with Step 3 below.
1 whole chicken cut into parts
1 cup peeled and sliced carrots (cut into thin rounds)
3 or 4 celery stalks cut into a few large pieces
1 onion, peeled and cut into quarters
1–2-inch piece of fresh ginger sliced into thin rounds
4 small cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole
Jalapeño pepper slices (optional, and to taste)
1 stalk lemongrass, outer leaves removed, cut in half and pounded a little to release the flavor
2 star anise
½ teaspoon peppercorns
2 teaspoons kosher salt
4 quarts water
1) Place all ingredients in the Instant Pot. Set to “Soup” and cook on high pressure for 30 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally for about 15 minutes, then release the rest manually.
2) Open the lid and remove the pieces of chicken to a plate. (The chicken will be a little overcooked, but will have made flavorful broth. Set it aside — later you can either add it back to the soup or use it for another purpose such as chicken salad or tacos.)
3) With a large spoon, skim any visible fat or scum from the top of the soup, leaving the cooked vegetable mixture at the bottom of the pot. Strain broth through a fine-mesh sieve (lined with cheesecloth or paper towel if you like) into a large bowl. Find the carrots and add them to the clear broth, discarding the rest of the vegetable mixture.
Taste for seasoning and add more salt as desired. Shred the chicken back into the soup if you like. Serve with matzo balls.
Note: Read the manual that accompanies your Instant Pot, as features may differ among models.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
