Thanks to some miracle-beyond-all-miracles, my family and I have managed not to catch the flu (yet) this year. *Knocks on every piece of wood in a five mile radius* Actually, it’s not entirely thanks to luck. Since I’m immune compromised, we’ve been doing a lot of preventative measures to try to keep this nasty, nasty bug out of our house.
We’ve stopped going to most public places, and if we do, we just deal with all the looks and wear masks (we have fun ones that are reusable—they’re great). We take homemade elderberry syrup daily. We have hand sanitizer within reach at all times. And, maybe most importantly of all, we’re eating to support our immune systems. I think that probably means something different for each person, but for us, one way to do that is by eating lots and lots of anti-inflammatory herbs, spices, fruits, and veggies.
I’ve been making a batch of this Turmeric Chicken Zoodle Soup every week since early Fall, and I 100% believe it has helped keep us from catching the nastiness that’s going around. This is health in a bowl. It also happens to be paleo-friendly, AIP, and SCD. When a dish works with so many healing, therapeutic diets, you know it’s gotta be packed full of goodness—and this soup most definitely is.
The biggest change between this Chicken Zoodle Soup and my regular Chicken Noodle Soup is swapping out the wheat noodles for zucchini noodles. Now, I’m not a huge zoodle fan. No matter what tricks and tips I use, they always seem to turn out soggy and watery and just not-even-a-little bit like real noodles. But, trust me, they flat out WORK in this soup. All those problems of sogginess and wateriness are gone because, well, the noodles are soaking in bath of broth! It’s the perfect use for zucchini noodles.
Of course, I also made sure to add lots of turmeric to this dish. We talked about why turmeric is so freaking awesome back in this post, so I won’t rehash it, but basically—turmeric is crazy pants good for you, and it’s crazy pants tasty, so why not eat it whenever you can?
In the recipe, I’ve include both from-scratch (cooking from a whole chicken) and quick-and-easy (using precooked rotisserie chicken) methods. Both end up making awesome chicken zoodle soup, but like all things in the kitchen, the from-scratch method is a little bit tastier and will save you a bit of cash.
I order roasting chickens in bulk from a local farm, so we always have them stashed in the freezer. The from-scratch method is how I roll. But if you’re feeling sick and short on time? Grab yourself a rotisserie chicken and go from zero to soup in about 20 minutes. When I feel the first tickle of a sore throat, I do two things: I start taking elderberry syrup every two hours, and I make a batch of this soup. That way, I have soup in the fridge for the next few days of yuckiness (and hopefully the elderberry syrup does keep it to just a few days).
If you haven’t picked up a spiralizer yet (this is the one I have and it’s done me well), you can also make zucchini noodles two other ways. First way: use a vegetable peeler and peel long, thin, wide noodles from the zucchini. Second way: get out your knife and julienne the zucchini. Both take a little bit longer than the spiralizer, but both will definitely work! Of course, you could also just chop the zucchini into half-rounds and throw them into the soup—easy peasy.
I hope you and your family stay well this season! Enjoy.
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