What’s not to love about Jamaican chicken soup with dumplings? This hearty chicken soup is made with wholesome ingredients and easy to make. This soup, loaded with vegetables, is full of textures and so flavoursome that it hits all the right spots.
Like most Caribbean soups, Jamaican chicken soup is an easy way to provide cheap, nutritious meals using local ingredients. Adding root vegetables (ground provisions) makes it filling, with squash adding depth and a nice yellowish colour. It is also great warmer on cold or rainy days.
How To Make Jamaican Chicken Soup
Here are the ingredients you need...
- Chicken legs
- Onion
- Grated ginger
- Garlic
- Squash
- Salt
- All-purpose flour
- Potatoes
- Carrots
- Corn
- Allspice
- Onion powder
- Cumin
- Coriander
- Oregano
- Scotch bonnet pepper
- Fresh thyme
- Spring onion
A few notes about the ingredients...
- Chicken parts: You can use any piece of the chicken for this recipe - thighs, legs, wings and chicken breasts all work well. You can even use chicken feet.
- Vegetables: This Caribbean soup is eaten as a full meal and is loaded with roots and vegetables. You can add your preferred veggies to the soup. Other traditionally added vegetables to Jamaican chicken soup include plantain, cho cho/chayote, cassava and sweet potatoes.
- Scotch bonnet peppers: This adds some heat and its characteristic fruitiness to the soup. Depending on your heat tolerance level, you can exclude it or add more than one to the soup.
How to make it...
Dumplings/Spinners
Add the flour to a bowl with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ cup water. Mix the ingredients, aiming for a stiff dough. If the water is not enough, start adding one tablespoon at a time into the dough until it comes together with the right consistency. You will need ¼ - ½ cups of water per cup of flour.
Knead the dough well for a few minutes. Then, pinch a small quantity of the dough and roll it in your palms. The spinners should look like this.
Soup
The hardest part of the Jamaican chicken soup recipe is preparing the vegetables.
Peel and chop the onions and garlic. Grate the ginger. Peel the squash, scoop out the seeds and cut it into cubes. Use a sharp knife to cut the corn cobs into four pieces. Peel the potatoes and cut into cubes. Cut the carrots into slices. Strip the thyme and slice the spring onions.
Add the chicken, squash, onions, garlic, ginger and a teaspoon of salt into a large saucepan. Add enough water to cover the content of the pot and place on high heat. Allow to simmer for 15 mins, then reduce the heat. You can make the spinners at this time or prepare the other vegetables.
Bring out some of the cooked squash pieces. We will add it back in later. Next, add the dumplings, sweet corn, carrots, potatoes, allspice, onion powder, cumin, coriander and oregano. Cover the pan and cook for another 15 mins. Taste for salt and add more if needed.
At this point, some of the potatoes and squash would have broken down to thicken the soup, but because we are not adding the Grace spice mix, the soup will need to be thickened more. This is done by mashing some of the cooked squash that was kept aside and adding back into the pot. Add the thyme, spring onion and scotch bonnet pepper.
Reduce the heat to low and allow to cook for 10 more minutes. Remove from heat and serve.
Recipe FAQ
The spinners are the only ingredients made from wheat flour. You can skip the spinners or use gluten-free flour to make them.
Grace cock soup mix is traditionally added to Jamaican soups for flavour and body; most recipes I found included this ingredient. However, I decided to exclude it because I feel there is so much wholesome goodness to this dish that I didn’t want to add something out of a packet (with a long list of ingredients). To make up for this, I added additional spices to maintain the full flavours of the soup.
Related Recipes
Other Caribbean recipes to try...
Jamaican Chicken Soup Recipe
Ingredients
Dumplings
- 1 cup All-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- ¼ - ½ cup Water
Soup
- 6 Chicken legs
- 1 Onion
- 1 teaspoon Grated ginger
- 2 cloves Garlic
- ½ Squash medium
- Salt to taste
- 3 Potatoes medium
- 3 Carrots medium
- 2 Corn
- 1 teaspoon Allspice
- 1 teaspoon Onion powder
- ½ teaspoon Cumin
- ½ teaspoon Coriander
- 1 teaspoon Oregano
- 1 Scotch bonnet pepper
- 6 sprigs Fresh thyme
- 3 Spring onions
Instructions
How to make dumplings/spinners
- Add the flour to a bowl with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ cup water. Mix the ingredients, aiming for a stiff dough. If the water is not enough, start adding one tablespoon at a time into the dough until it comes together with the right consistency.
- Knead the dough well for a few minutes. Then, pinch a small quantity of the dough and roll it in your palms to make the dumplings. Repeat until you use up the dough.
How to make the soup
- The hardest part of the Jamaican chicken soup recipe is preparing the vegetables.
- Prepare the vegetables – Peel and chop the onions and garlic. Grate the ginger. Peel the squash and cut it into cubes and scoop out the seed. Use a sharp knife to cut each corn cob into four pieces. Peel the potatoes and cut into cubes. Cut the carrots into slices. Strip the thyme and slice the spring onions.
- Add the chicken, squash, onions, garlic, ginger and a teaspoon of salt into a large saucepan. Add enough water to cover the content of the pot and place on high heat. Allow to simmer for 15 mins, then reduce the heat. You can make the spinners at this time or prepare the other vegetables.
- Bring out some of the cooked squash pieces, then add the sweet corn, carrots, potatoes, allspice, onion powder, cumin, coriander and oregano. Cover the pan and cook for another 15 mins.
- Mash the the cooked squash pieces and add back into the pot to thicken the soup. Add the thyme, spring onion and scotch bonnet pepper. Reduce the heat to low and allow to cook for 10 more minutes. Remove from heat and serve.
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