Ginseng chicken soup (in Korean, Samgyetang) is a hot, steaming, delicious dish that features a small chicken stuffed with rice, ginseng, garlic, and jujube. You have to commit to eating a whole chicken all by yourself when you sit down for a bowl of samgyetang! But it’s totally worth it.
A while ago I ran into one of my readers in a restaurant here in New York. He was sitting at a table with his friend.
The first thing he said was: “Oh man, Maangchi!! I can’t believe I ran into you here!”
We talked for a while and I asked him what his favorite recipe of mine was. He answered “Samgyetang” and told me how he often made it for himself and his mother. I was very impressed!
My original video for samgyetang was one of my earliest videos, made all the way back in 2007! July is a good time to remake it in HD, because Koreans traditionally eat this dish during the hottest days of summer as a way to keep up their energy and to balance their body heat with the weather outside. We have a saying: Yi yeol chi yeol (以熱治熱: 이열치열), which means “fight fire with fire.” If it’s hot outside, you have to overcome it with hot soup!
Koreans designate the 3 hottest days of a year as sambok (3 bok: 삼복) and their dates vary from year to year but they usually fall in July and August. First is chobok (beginning), and then 10 days later is jungbok (middle), and 20 days after that is malbok (last).
During this time, well-known samgyetang restaurants will be lined up outside, and inside they are full of diners eating hot, steamy, ginseng-infused soup, with sweat trickling down their foreheads as they fight fire with fire! Housewives make samgyetang for all her family, too. I usually prepare samgyetang and cold watermelon. After finishing hot samgyetang, finish with cold watermelon. The contrast makes your body feel shocking cold.
So if you like to follow Korean tradition, you can join them in 2015 on July 13 (chobok), July 23 (jungbok), and August 12 (malbok). Let me know how it turns out!
Ingredients
- 2 cornish hens. Each hen weighs about 1½ pounds, a nice portion for 1 person.
- ½ cup short grain rice (or glutinous rice), rinsed and soaked in cold water for 2 hours
- 2 fresh ginseng roots, washed
- 2 large dried jujubes, washed
- 16 garlic cloves, washed and the tips are removed
- 2 to 3 green onions, chopped
- salt
- ground black pepper
For the sesame dipping sauce:
For sweet sour soy dipping sauce:
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon honey (or sugar)
- ½ a medium size onion, cut into chunks
- 1 Jalapeno (or green chili pepper), chopped
Directions
Make the dipping sauces:
- Combine salt, sesame seeds, ground black pepper, and sesame oil in a small bowl and mix well. Set aside.
- Combine soy sauce, vinegar, and honey (or sugar) in another bowl. Mix well with a spoon. Add onion and jalapeno. Set aside.
Cook the chicken:
- Strain the rice.
- Remove the giblets from the hens and rub them with salt all over to clean them nicely. Rinse under cold running water.
- Put the hens on the cutting board, pat dry, and remove any extra fat around the body cavities with kitchen scissors. Cut off the tips of wings if you want.
- Stuff each hen with rice, 1 ginseng, 1 jujube, and 8 garlic cloves. Put any leftover rice in the pot.
- Place the hens into a heavy pot. Add 8 cups of cold water, cover, and cook over medium high heat for 30 minutes.
- Turn down the heat to medium and cook another 40 minutes until the chicken, ginseng, and rice turn soft. Open up the pot from time to time and ladle some broth from the bottom over top of the chickens. If the broth evaporates too much, add more water.
- Remove from the heat.
Serve:
- Place each hen into 2 individual bowls and add the chicken and broth. Sprinkle with chopped green onion and ground black pepper. Serve with kimchi and the 2 kinds of dipping sauce.
- If you serve them in earthenware pots, preheat the pots with a little water inside (about 2 tablespoons) and add the chicken and broth. Let them sit in on the heat until the samgyetang starts to sizzle. Then remove from the heat and sprinkle green onion over top and grind some black pepper. Serve hot with the dipping sauce and kimchi.
Posted Sunday, October 14th, 2007 at 9:55 pm.
Tagged: chicken soup, cornish hen recipe, ginseng chicken soup, 삼계탕, Korean chicken soup, Korean cooking, Korean cuisine, korean food, Korean recipes, Maangchi, maangchi's samgyetang, samgyetang, stuffed ginseng chicken soup
Jun 23rd
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Tomorrow evening I will cook this – it will be 말복 in Korea then.
How did your samgyetang turn out?
Hi Maangchi!
Delicious, of course! :-)
Today (just a few minutes ago) we had hoe (tuna, butterfish, halibut and char).
Bye, Sanne.
hi Maangchi
I don’t have a ginseng root..can i use a ginseng powder? And how many tea spoon does i need? Thank you before..
Yes, you could use the powder, too. I think about 1 tablespoon is enough for 1 serving.
Thx a lot.. I will recook this recipe..
My first time making Ginseng Chicken Soup and it came out perfect and delicious!!
Thank you so much for this recipe! My family loved it!
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Hi Maangchi ! May you help me ? I`m so happy because I bought this bag specially for cooking samgyetang. But ¿ what is this ? ¿ pieces of wood ? Do you know it ?
I´m enjoying so much your blog and youtube`s videos. Thanks to you I`m prepare tasty kimchi ! ñami !
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Yes, it’s a samgyetang kit. They are Korean herbs that you can add to your chicken soup.
Thanks !!! but …. I saw pieces of wood , someone very large (5cm) you can see them in the photo , I did not expect it I don`t see herbs :(
Sorry if I’m annoying . I want to buy more, for that reason I really appreciate your answers, !! a lot !!
Hi Maangchi!! Could this be prepared family style with a larger roaster size chicken? My kids have have an aversion to Cornish hens because they look like baby chickens :-(.
Prepare the chicken without the rice, but with everything else (let it simmer until it’s tender), take it out of the pot, keep it warm, remove the oily fat on the broth and cook the rice in the broth.
Tear or cut the chicken in suitable pieces. Serve it on a big plate and the juk in individual bowls. Dipping sauces as usual.
We had it this way with friends after harvesting daeju. With lots of banjan and somek… ;-)
Bye, Sanne.
Hi, maangchi. Do you have some tips for making samgyetang for a large group? Would you put many hens into one extra large pot? Thank you for your help!
Maangchi, thank you for this recipe! I have been wanting to make this for a long time.
Is there any difference for cooking Samgyetang in a dolsot? I am thinking about splitting this recipe so I can just make one. 감사합니다!
“Is there any difference for cooking Samgyetang in a dolsot?” You can cook samgyetang either in a regular pot or in a dolsot. I would make samgyetang in a large pot so that you can cook it more easily without it boiling over, and then transfer it to a dolsot for serving. Good luck!
I’ve made this dish so many times now. It’s super easy to make and my husband loves it! Thank you Maangchi for sharing your recipes!
I’m glad you have been enjoying this recipe! I feel like samgyetang now! : )
Hi Maangchi!
I am from the Philippines and I don’t know where to find Ginseng root or Ginseng powder. I also have a lot of allergies and I don’t know if I’ll be allergic to Ginseng.. Any advice on what alternative I could use in place of Ginseng? I really want to try this, specially during colds/sickness season. Thank so much.
In that case, try it with ginger instead. It’s a different taste, but originally Korean, too (we’ve got the recipe from a dear Korean friend).
And children can eat that one, too.
How many ginger should I use? should I use as much ginger as ginseng in this recipe? By the way, thank you so much for answering my question.. :)
Try the same amount on your first try and change it later according to your taste.
You’re welcome! :-)
Bye, Sanne.
Hi Maangchi and all
I need help here. I am about to buy ginseng in Seoul but I read from internet there are 3 types of ginseng – susam, baeksam, hongsam. which one of these type you use to make ginseng chicken soup above?? Any advise how I choose good quality ginseng?
I read one of the comments I can substitute it with 1tbs ginseng powder, any recommended ginseng powder brand you have? Thank you!!
Hi dear in my country just have a dried ginseng. for make 삼계탕 how many times i should ginseng soaked in water?!
감사합니다 ^^
Hi dear in my country just dried ginseng. for make 감계탕 how many times i should ginseng soaked in water?!
감사합니다 ^^
hi maangchi i bought this package of dried veggies but i don’t know if is good to use it to make this dish, and is yes how to use it.
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Kandracar,
My assumption is going to be that it should be fine to use this but since the veggies look like they’re frozen(?) they might not taste the same. This package does say it’s for the same recipe… but I always try to go for the fresh ingredient route.
Maangchi I found out that my soup turned out to be kinda yellowish instead of having that beautiful white colour. Is it something to do with the chicken I used? The chickens we commonly eat here in Hong Kong are rather big in size and the chickens’ skin is kind of yellowish. My first attempt of following this recipe didn’t go so well. The taste was good but the soup somehow became very thick and it looked like some kind of chicken porridge lol. I think I must have cooked it for too long over high heat…
Maangchi, your comment doesn’t sound like making samgyetang lol
” I found out that my soup turned out to be kinda yellowish.. ”
I thought you talked about ox bone soup! lol
It’s normal the color of samgyetang turns out a little dark because of ginseng and jujubes. Use less ginseng and skip jujubes (or use only 1) if you like to make yours milky.
“the soup somehow became very thick.” I would add more water to thin it out before serving. Good luck! : )
hi Maangchi
Im just wondering is it necessary to have jujubes on the soap? because its hard to find jujubes here, and i really want to cook your Samgyetang,..
You can skip jujubes and it will still turn out delicious!
Hi just wanna ask if i could use other pot like stainless pot.since i dont have that kind of pot you are using. Thank you
yes, you can. Cook it in a large stainless steel stock pot and serve it in a ceramic bowl.
Great video, easy to follow steps. First time making, the taste was great but not enough soup at the end and the chest meat was still not as soft as those Korean stall.
Next time I need a bigger cooking bowl and cook it longer. :)
The sweet rice was finger licking good.
Thanks for the video.
Good idea, using a large pot is better.
I found a samgyetang “kit” with the sticky rice, dried jujubes, and dried ginseng in it at our small, local Korean grocery and remembered that I always see this in my Korean cookbooks and on your site, Maangchi! Tonight I will try to make it using your recipe as guidance, since I cannot read Korean well (yet). My husband is excited to try it; maybe 어머님 will be impressed when he tells her I made it, haha!
Ha! It turned out delicious! I added a bit of ginger, too, and some chestnut. Thanks, Maangchi! ^_^
awesome!