Jamaican chicken soup recipe

Jamaican chicken soup is packed with a lot of flavour, from the all the foods that is added. This dish is also very filling and you won't have to have any sides.

Course Soup

Cuisine Jamaican

Keyword Jamaican chicken soup recipe

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 45

Servings Servings

Calories 458kcal

Author Lesa

Ingredients

1 ½ lb Chicken
1 pack Chicken noodle soup mix
2 lb Pumpkin
½ lb Yellow yam
2 small Turnips Or Chocho (See notes)
1 small dasheen
1 small Coco (eddoes) See notes
2 medium Corn
2 medium Carrots
1 Small Onion
2 Cloves garlic
1 Scotch bonnet pepper
2 stark Scallions
3 Sprig Thyme
5 Pimento berries (Allspice)
½ tsp Salt Pink Himalayan salt (See Notes)
7 cups Water

Dumpling Mix

1 ½ cup Plain flour
Water
⅛ tsp Salt optional
2 tbsp Cornmeal optional

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Clean the chicken the way you do it. Place the chicken in a large soup pot with 2 cups of boiling water, the pimento berries, salt, minced garlic and chopped onion. Bring to a boil, then add half the pumpkin. (Make sure this portion of pumpkin is chopped very small so that it cooks easily.)
Once the pumpkin is cooked, crush it with a fork. (If you have a hand blender, cook the pumpkin and blend it out before adding the chicken, pimento berries and onion. I did it the old-fashioned way.) Add the corn.
Add more water. Chop the corn into three pieces and add to the pot
Mix the flour, cornmeal, and salt (if using), then gradually add water until a stiff dough forms. Separate the dough into very small pieces and make round flat dumplings. Add then to the soup pot.
Add the rest of the water, the chopped yellow yam, turnip, carrot, dasheen, coco and the remaining pumpkin.
Stir in the soup mix. You may want to sieve it as I did, before adding it to the pot. To avoid plumbing, mix the soup mix with a little of your soup broth before adding it to the pot.
Add the scallion, thyme and scotch bonnet pepper. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, then turn the heat to medium-low and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until all the vegetables are cooked.
Stir occasionally to stop the food from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning. Midway, taste the soup and add more salt if needed.

Notes

Turnip or Chocho: I was unable to find chocho at the market, but I did find turnip, so I used that. The choice is not either or. You could use one or both.
Coco: Coco (pronounced coca-ko) is what Jamaicans call eddoes—similar to dasheen but not the same.
Salt: I used Pink Himalayan salt. If you like your food with a bit more salt, you make want to use 1/2 tsp more salt.

Nutrition