This Immune Boosting Wellness Soup Is For Winter, flu season and is loaded with the medicinal properties for what ails you!
Comforting Soup With Powerful Antioxidant Ingredients
An immune wellness soup, extracting its antioxidants from garlic, mushrooms, onions, chilies and kale along with turkey meat, for the perfect wellness soup.
There we are, rolling along enjoying the crisp air of Autumn, while heading into the holiday season, and without warning, sore throat hits, announcing other ailments that are soon to follow.
What do we do the moment that happens?
Think halloween, with a large cauldron of secret ingredients boiling on top the stove, and you are definitely already on the road to recovery!
Immune Health Wellness
Have you caught it yet? Hope not, but if you have or when you do, you will want this hot immune wellness soup created just for cold and flu season.
Building a strong immune system as we leave summer and head into the family gathering season, requires ‘feel-good soup recipes’, and I have several of them for you.
Wellness is something we have all placed at the top of our priority list these days, particularly since the virus seems to be here to stay.
Lots Of Natural Wellness Ingredients In Our Kitchen
If you are here right now in need of TLC to feel better, you are going to want Wellness Popsicles too!
Many of us may have learned late in life how to use food as a preventative against disease, or at least lessen its blow when it does hit.
I, for one, have been that nerdy health nut since I was in my teens. I wanted to know what was in everything I cooked with and how it could best benefit my health.
Since the onset of this virus I have truly become a health nerd!
Immune Wellness In Plants
Immune boosting chicken soup isn’t the only homemade soup to bring wellness to sick people.
In fact, I have found the best soup to tuck in the freezer as a immunity soup when the need occurs, is using plants.
Having lived several years in Brazil, first the interior followed by Rio, I learned so much about plant medicine.
Sure, some great warming soups were made with bone broth in the interior and seafood stocks along the coastlines of Brazil, but it was what they understood about important role plants played in our immune responses.
The Best Vegetable Based Soups For Winter
Once winter arrives and local farmers markets have closed for the season, we must rely on the vegetables that contribute to overall health; and roots are usually it.
An easy vegetable soup can be made of boiled onions and garlic, for their sulfur compounds, as the base for anti-inflammatory ingredients, low sodium, and as a gut health soup, rather than taking MSM for those properties.
Add to that base, the essential oils found in oregano, rosemary and marjoram, which bring aid from their antiviral and anti-fungal properties.
Many a winter’s day, I have whipped up this hot soup in under 30-minutes, tossing in a few green beans or baby spinach for fibrous green veggies.
The best part about a quick soup like this is that you don’t have to wait out the time it takes to make a chicken stock or chicken broth for a ‘get well’ soup.
One Last Immune Boosting Vegetable We Want In Our Winter Soup
We can’t forget to point out the immune function of Mushrooms!
A simple mushroom broth, easily made from the onion and garlic base broth, is an easy soup with loads of flavor.
Mushrooms are an important source of micronutrients, which work to support a healthy immune system, from their source of selenium, which helps the body make antioxidants, that can reduce cell damage.
Let’s Talk Turkey For Wellness In Winter
Why wait until we are sick to eat an important immune boosting soup?
Once Thanksgiving arrives and until early spring, we are already into cold and flu season, which is why I always make a huge batch of Day-After-Thanksgiving Turkey soup to freeze for times of need.
The lean protein packed, immunity boosting properties of turkey made into a soup, are filled with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fiber.
And yes, during cold and flu season (or that nasty virus), it’s particularly important to your body’s ability to fight disease.
Ingredients Needed
- Turkey thighs or Chicken thighs
- Onions
- Garlic
- Mushrooms – preferably shiitake mushrooms
- Chili peppers
- Thyme
- Fresh Oregano
- Kale or Swiss Chard
- Lemon
- Salt
- Olive oil
Equipment Needed
- Large stock pot – a must for homemade soups.
- Cutting board
- Chopping knife
- Citrus press
- Measuring spoons
- Measuring cup
- Large cooking spoon
- Stovetop or burner
Immune Boosting Wellness Soup
Equipment
- Large stock pot
Ingredients
- 2 Large Turkey Thighs or 6 chicken thighs
- 3 Onions rough chopped
- 6 Cloves of Garlic peeled and rough chopped
- 4 cups Mushrooms preferably shiitake mushrooms
- 2 Fresh Chili peppers or red peppers
- 1 Thyme bundle
- 1 Fresh Oregano bundle
- 6 cups Kale, Swiss chard or other dark leafy greens
- 2 tbsp Lemon juice some zest
- 2 tbsp Salt
- 1 tsp Black pepper
- 2 tbsp Olive Oil or coconut oil
- 4 qts Hot water
Instructions
- In a large pot, over medium heat, place olive oil and sear both sides of turkey thighs or chicken thighs, sprinkled with a little salt and remove from the pot.
- Add the onions, garlic and chili peppers, stir and sweat the onions.
- Add enough hot water (preferably already boiled), to come halfway up the pot. Add the remaining salt, lemon, thyme, oregano, mushrooms and return the thighs to the pot, cover and simmer on medium low for an hour.
- Remove turkey from the pot, cool enough to handle and chop into bite size chunks.
- Return the turkey meat to the pot, cool enough to handle and chop into bite size chunks.
- Return the turkey meat to the pot, add kale or chard, cover and simmer just until the kale looks wilted. Don’t over cook the kale.
- Your nutrient-dense soup is ready; feel better!!
Notes
- Don’t be shy to make a big batch, if you usually cook for one or two. This soup freezes beautifully in smaller airtight container portions for other days.
I believe the table... that place that draws people to gather, is the most powerful symbol of togetherness. All that happens before the table is set, the planning, the gathering, the preparing, are all an intricate part of the dance that create the mood of celebration to share with friends and loved ones.