Samgyetang or Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup is a popular summer cuisine. Because it is prepared with Ginseng and various medicinal herbs, it often called stamina food in Korea.

Ginseng Chicken Soup eat this during the hottest days of summer to balance the energy of body. Korea has 3 hottest day of the year and it call 3 Bok. It usually fall July and August and most of the Samgyetang restaurants has many patrons to eat Ginseng Chicken Soup to replenish the energy.

Samgyetang chicken soup is made with small juvenile chicken that is stuffed with rice, ginseng, garlic and jujube.

Because of the ginseng and jujube, the flavor of meat is very tender and sweet than western chicken soup. Also broth is rich with nutrition came from ginseng.

Often time, many people are surprises my taste of Samgyetang because is it nothing like any other chicken soup people had before.

How to Make Samgye-tang

SAMGYETANG (GINSENG CHICKEN SOUP)

How to Make Samgyetang (Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup)

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Prep Time 5

Cook Time 50

Course Main Course

Cuisine Korean

Servings 4

Calories 372 kcal

Ingredients

BROTH

1.2 kg whole chicken if you can, try to use cornish chicken as the typically recommended chicken size for samgyetang is about 400 g / 0.9 pounds per serving. However, I couldn’t find it, so I just used the smallest whole chicken I could find.
1.5 liter water

STUFFING

0.25 cup sweet rice (mochi rice or sticky rice), soaked in water for 2 hours (this can be done overnight and kept in the fridge)
1 ginseng , dried or fresh Korean ginseng or American ginseng (I used 15 g of dried ginseng)
4 whole garlic cloves , peeled
5 dried jujube
4 ginkgo nuts (optional), peeled if not already
4 chest nuts (optional), fresh or frozen, peeled if not already

GARNISH & TO SERVE

1 Tbsp green onion , thinly sliced
fine sea salt , to taste
ground black pepper , to taste

Instructions

Wash the chicken (including the cavity) thoroughly under running cold water.
Stuff the chicken cavity with sweet rice, ginseng, garlic cloves, jujube, gingko nuts, and chest nuts. Cross the chicken legs and tie them with a cotton tie. Alternatively, you can make a slit on one side of the chicken thigh skin and put the other leg through it. (It sounds difficult but it’s not!) This is to minimise the stuffed ingredients falling out.
Pour the water into a large pot and add the stuffed chicken. Boil the pot over medium high heat, covered, for 20 mins. Reduce the heat to medium to medium low and boil further until the chicken is fully cooked (about 30 mins further). Also, make sure the stuffed sweet rice is fully cooked too. Skim off any scum as desired.
Transfer the chicken and the soup into a serving bowl. Garnish with the green onion and serve. Also, serve a small plate of salt and black pepper mixture (one plate per person). You can dip your chicken pieces into this sauce or add to your soup as desired. (Finally, don’t forget to serve some Kimchi too!)