When making chicken soup, do you start with cold water or hot? And should you cook it on low heat or high? Stick around for all the essential cooking tips! I’m excited to share my recipe for Chinese Chicken Soup with Red Dates and Mushrooms—it’s a comforting, flavorful classic!

Chinese Chicken Soup Recipe

Serving 4-6
Prep time: 5 minutes
Rest time: 2 hours
Cook time: 1 hour

For the shiitake mushrooms:
1 ½ cups water
12 pieces dried shiitake mushrooms

For the soup:
1 whole chicken (4 pounds)
8 cups water
6 pieces ginger
2 tablespoons rice wine
12 red dates, deseeded
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon goji berries

Chinese Chicken Soup Instructions

1. In a bowl, add the thoroughly cleaned dried shiitake mushrooms and pour in the water. Rehydrate for 2 hours.
2. In a pot of water over high heat, place the chicken inside, and bring it to a simmer. Skim off any impurity.
3. Place in the shiitake mushroom along with the soaking water, ginger, and rice wine (You could also replace it with other cooking wine or omit it if you can’t consume alcohol.) Turn to low heat, cover the lid, and cook for 30 minutes.
4. Place the red dates, cover the lid, and cook for another 20 minutes until the internal temperature of the chicken is at least 165 degrees F or 74 degrees C.
5. Season the soup with salt, place in the goji berries, and cook for another 5 minutes.

Cooking Tips

1. When you cook chicken, you can start with cold water for tastier soup or start with hot water for tastier meat. So it really depends on what you are looking for.
2. When you cook chicken soup, you could use low heat if you want your soup to be clear or use high heat if you want your soup to be richer. Again, it depends on your preferences.
3. I took out the seeds of the red dates because the seeds could provide too much internal heat while cooking. In Chinese, we call it “shang huo”. Also, if you cook the red dates for too long, they will have a sour taste and also fall apart at the end.
4. Goji berries also don’t require a long cooking time. The nutrition inside will be destroyed, and they will fall apart if they are cooked for too long.