Every time I visit my parents for a weekend, my mom sends me home with a little "care package." To my delight, this care package usually consists of some sort of healthy, home-baked banana bread and a generous Mason jar of her amazingly delicious chicken soup (a.k.a. "soup for the soul"). This soup always comes to the rescue when I feel like I need a little extra love, or when my throat is feeling scratchy.

In ancient Egypt, chicken soup was often prescribed for the common cold (food used as medicine, love it!) and during the 12th century, Maimonides, an Egyptian Jewish physician and philosopher, recommended it for treating respiratory tract symptoms. It wasn't just the Egyptians that were on to something here...

If you simply "Google" chicken noodle soup, you will find dozens of recipes from many different cultures, all claiming to be the cure for a cold. There's the Greek egg-lemon soup (avgolemono), Brazilian soup (canja de galinha), matzo ball soup, Vietnamese chicken pho and, of course, my mom's chicken soup, which is my personal favourite (but maybe I'm a little biased).


Homemade Chicken Soup for the Soul

If you don't have time to prepare the chicken stock from scratch you can buy organic, low-sodium chicken stock at the grocery store. And, if you do have time, then check out this stock recipe on That's Fit. When I asked my mom for her secret recipe, she said, "I just make it from scratch off the top of my head every time", including her own homemade stock. So thanks to my mom, who actually wrote down her secret recipe for me to share!

Ingredients:

• 3 x 1 L containers of chicken stock (look for low-sodium, organic)
• 2 large tins of diced tomatoes, including the juice
• 1 medium-sized onion, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 cup carrots, chopped
• 3/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Veggie Soup Mix (it's a combo of different types of dried peas and beans)
• 3/4 cup barley
• 1-2 cups of diced chicken
• Sea salt, pepper and any spices you like (i.e. oregano or parsley). You may also wish to add garlic, which is an incredible immunity builder

Heat up the chicken stock in a large pot and add the diced tomatoes, including the juice. Add a little water if you want to change the consistency of the soup or the taste of the broth. Add all the remaining ingredients and cook on the stove over medium to low heat until the veggies, barley and Bob's Red Mill soup mix are tender (yes, it's THAT easy). You could let it simmer for a few hours. At the very end, add 1 to 2 cups of diced cooked chicken.

This soup can be put into jars and frozen, but it's so good you will probably want to eat it all in one week. Make sure you leave about 1/2 - 1 inch between the top of the soup and the lid to leave room for the liquid to expand when it freezes.

Straight from Ma McCarthy's mouth to this post: "When the winter winds blow or you are suffering from a cold, there is nothing like a nice, warm bowl of chicken soup joy".

EnJOY!

Joy McCarthy, owner of Joyous Health, is a certified holistic nutritionist and health coach with a passion for inspiring people to eat well, live well and feel more joyous on a daily basis. Joy welcomes your questions or comments and although you may not receive a response, your submission will certainly be read and may be selected as a topic for a future column.