Winter is just around the corner, and with it comes snow, snow, and more snow. You can bet people will be doing a lot of frolicking in the snow this season because it is indeed such a pleasure to be doing so. But with the cold, cold weather comes the tendency to have colds, flu, and allergies. And this is precisely why soups are popular during the cold winter season. Arming your immune system aptly is one way of thwarting these diseases. Taking in soups is one effective way of doing this.

One of the popularly served soups for the winter season is undoubtedly chicken soup. Remember the days when you would enjoy a bowl of your mother’s chicken soup? The day has come for you to be doing this on your own now. But if you do not know the first thing about making chicken soup, well, it is actually pretty easy.

In a nutshell, the chicken should be boiled to tenderness. The chicken should be well seasoned, so that your own stock can be made. Of course, vegetables and herbs make great contributions to chicken soup. Examples of such herbs are basil and tarragon. These herbs actually give chicken soup that soothing flavor everyone looks for. Basil is primarily very easy to grow! You can even grow basil in a simple garden pot right on your very own back porch!

However, when you are thinking of brewing up chicken soup for a lot of people, then it is important for you to keep these guidelines in mind. There is the matter of using onions and garlic cloves. For every person that you are serving, there should be half an onion and two garlic cloves. The half an onion should be chopped, while the garlic cloves can either be chopped or sliced. These should be sautéed in olive oil for as long as it takes for the onions to become translucent. When the onions are already translucent, this is a strong indication that they are already soft enough.

As for vegetables, anything fresh that is in season would be fine for chicken soup. But the more popular choices here would include yellow squash, green beans, broccoli, zucchini, corn, and bell pepper. Now, bell pepper comes in different kinds, right? You can actually use any kind you want for chicken soup! Red, yellow, orange, or green bell peppers would make great ingredients to include in chicken soup. It is not required that you include every vegetable that has been mentioned into your dish. However, if you want your chicken soup to be more flavorful, then it is recommended to include all vegetables on the list.

You can also add mushrooms for your soup, as well as seaweed and tonic roots. As for your vegetables and seasoning, it would be better to add onions as well. Just bring the concoction to a boil, and let it simmer for roughly an hour. For more flavor, you can also add white wine! Now, this is indeed something that can add flavor to your soup! Once your soup starts to simmer, then remove it from the stove. The next step is “mellowing”. What happens here is that the soup will be left overnight in a cool and dry spot for it to mellow down. The next day, the soup can then be served on the table. For a more scrumptious meal, it would be better to serve the soup with crusty bread.

Another trade secret here is to add glyconutrients powder. Glyconutrients are quite important in the proper functioning of the immune system. With the right quality and proportion, glyconutrients powder can definitely make your chicken soup more fitting for the health conscious.