Ingredients
- A whole young chicken
- Fresh ginseng root, ideally Korean-grade insam
- Glutinous (sticky) rice, soaked until soft
- Dried jujube (red dates)
- Whole peeled garlic cloves
- Fresh ginger slices
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to finish
Food therapy
Samgyetang (Korean ginseng chicken soup)
Updated 21 October 2026
In Korean households, samgyetang is the canonical summer tonic: a whole young chicken slowly simmered with ginseng, garlic, jujube and glutinous rice, eaten on the hottest days to replace minerals lost through sweat. The dish carries the bo-gi logic of Korean Medicine — supporting qi through warming food rather than extracts. A once-a-season meal, not a daily supplement.
Herbs and practices affect people differently — nothing here suits everyone. Take it as reference.
Tonight, try this
Skip the four-hour simmer tonight. Warm a small bowl of chicken broth, drop in a few soaked jujubes, a few thin ginger slices and a small piece of ginseng, simmer briefly and sip slowly after dinner. Same logic as samgyetang, scaled to a single evening.
How it is made
- Stuff the cleaned chicken cavity with soaked glutinous rice, jujubes, garlic cloves, ginger slices and a ginseng root.
- Place the stuffed chicken in a deep pot, cover with cold water, bring to a gentle boil, then skim any foam off the surface.
- Reduce the heat and simmer gently for roughly an hour, until the chicken is tender and the broth turns cloudy and rich.
- Lift the chicken into a serving bowl, ladle the broth over, and season at the table with salt and a grind of black pepper.
- Serve with kimchi and a bowl of cooked rice; let the bowl sit steaming for a moment before the first spoonful.
When it is made
In Korea, samgyetang is the canonical Chobok-to-Malbok meal — the three hottest periods of the Korean summer calendar, falling roughly between mid-July and mid-August. Restaurants and home kitchens run the same pot all through midsummer, when the body is sweating out what it took in. Outside that window, samgyetang also shows up at the end of a heavy work week, on a recovery day after a feverish cold, or as the Sunday lunch when the family finally sits down together. The Korean logic runs counter to outsider intuition: heat the body from the inside while the air outside is hottest — the same way the body loses minerals and salt through sweat.
Disclaimer
Two notes worth mentioning. First, ginseng (including the milder Korean insam used here) has been studied for interactions with blood-thinning medication, stimulants and some blood-pressure drugs — if any of these apply to you, run the combination past a pharmacist before the first bowl. Second, the long simmer concentrates sodium and purines in the broth, which matters if you are watching blood pressure or managing gout. On pregnancy and nursing, classical sources read samgyetang as a warming meal rather than a medicinal dose; many Korean mothers do eat a smaller portion in late pregnancy and during recovery, but check with your own clinician for personal guidance.
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