How to make Healing Chinese Herbal Soup! The ultimate warming and replenishing broth!

This soup is perfect for anyone who wants to replenish and strengthen blood and qi, has poor circulation, relieves fatigue, or reduce pain and inflammation. I call this my healing Chinese herbal soup and want to give a shout out to Tash from Superwell for this partnership. Hi Tash! I'll normally make this after my period as it's perfect for warming the spleen and liver. According to TCM, if the liver qi doesn't flow freely, this causes stagnation in the qi and blood in the body and causes pain before and during menstruation. I love how these soups are all pre-packaged and ready to go. Let me show you what's inside. What makes this herbal soup so amazing and powerful? Let's break it down. Dong guai, also known as female ginseng. This is one powerful herb that tonifies the blood and helps with blood deficiency, targeting the heart, liver, and spleen. It's a very warm ingredient and has a distinct Chinese medicinal smell but commonly found in healing tonics. Next key ingredient is astragalus root, which is a tonic herb for qi deficiency, targeting the lung and spleen. It's a warm herb and also has healing properties. The red and black dates are great for replenishing qi, tonifying blood, and is a warming herb that adds a beautiful sweetness to the soup. These ingredients are definitely one of your basic pantry must-haves. I also added dried longans and swapped out the whole red dates for pitted ones to save some time as it's best to remove the overall fiery seeds of the red dates. Dried longans are very warming and nourishes blood and supports blood deficiency. This is usually paired with red dates as they both calm the spirit and relieve fatigue. Yule seeds or fox nuts are also commonly used in both soups and desserts. These little guys are sweet to taste and neutral in nature and great for dispelling dampness from the body. Then you've got dried Chinese yam which is a neutral herb that also supports qi deficiency and tonifies the spleen, lungs, and stomach. And finally the dried tangerine peel, also known as a powerhouse ingredient that is super warming, regulates the qi, reduces stagnation in the body, and eliminates dampness. For this type of warming and healing soup, I go with chicken as the protein, especially the black silky chicken which nicely complements these type of ingredients. You can blanch your chopped chicken to remove any oil, blood, and bones from your soup. This will also help flush out some of the foam that usually accumulates when you use meats in soups. I'm using lotus roots in this recipe because I love the flavors it brings to the soup. It's a neutral ingredient and you can eat them as part of the meal. Don't forget to use an oil scooper to scoop out any excess oil or foam floating on top of the soup. It's really as simple as throwing all the ingredients together into a boiling pot of water. I'll let this boil on medium high for 30 minutes and then reduce the boil for another two hours. The soup becomes a golden rich color packed full of nutrients and flavors. I love how such simple ingredients can really blend into something so beautiful and healing. Don't forget to share, like, and subscribe. And you can find more recipes on the blog. See you next time!