Food therapy

Samgyetang

Updated 21 October 2026

A whole young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice, jujube, garlic, and ginseng, served as a deeply nourishing summer meal. In Korean tradition the hottest days of the year are when the pot comes out — the heat is meant to pull the ginseng and stock deep into the body, replenishing what the long summer is said to take out.

Herbs and practices affect people differently — nothing here suits everyone. Take it as reference.

Tonight, try this

Cook a small-pot version tonight: use a single Cornish hen in place of a whole young chicken, shorten the simmer to about an hour, and bring the bowl to the table whole. The portion changes; the rest of the tradition stays.

Ingredients

A whole young chicken, fresh, dressed and ready for the pot
Glutinous rice, soaked until soft and drained
Smashed garlic cloves, skins left on
Dried jujubes (Chinese red dates), pitted
A small fresh ginseng root, with the finer side roots kept on
Thin slices of fresh ginger

How it is made

Soak the glutinous rice until it softens, then drain it.
Loosely stuff the cavity of the chicken with the rice, smashed garlic, jujubes, and the ginseng root.
Set the stuffed bird in a pot, add the ginger slices, and pour in cold water until the chicken is just covered.
Bring the pot slowly up to a gentle simmer, then hold it there, skimming the surface from time to time, until the meat loosens from the bone.
Season lightly near the end with salt and a small grind of white pepper; taste the broth and adjust.
Lift the whole chicken to a wide bowl, ladle the hot broth over it, and bring the pot to the table for sharing.

When it is made

Sambok (sam bok, the three hottest stretches) marks the three hottest stretches of high summer on the Korean calendar — chobok, jungbok, malbok, the first, middle, and last dog-day periods — and it is the moment a pot of samgyetang comes to the table. The Korean reading of the custom is iyulchiyeol — fighting heat with heat — meaning a hot, slow-simmered broth meant to support the body's qi through the season's pull. The dish shows up beyond sambok too: at family gatherings across the warmest months, in a pot lowered into the table for someone coming back from a heavy week, and in homes where a parent or grandparent is being looked after through a tiring stretch.

Disclaimer

Ginseng can interact with blood-pressure medication and blood-thinning medication, and the chicken-and-rice pot is a substantial meal — not a daily dish. If you are pregnant, on long-term medication, or new to ginseng, a smaller pot deserves a pharmacist's or clinician's sign-off first.

See how all the traditions approach this →

Where this comes from

Traditional practice as recorded in classical texts and public formularies (public domain)
Everyday food culture, described as practice rather than studied therapy
PubMed abstracts only for studies this page actually names