Chicken and leek barley soup
A warm chicken soup with soft leeks, carrots and pearl barley.
About 55 min · 405 kcal · 36 g protein per serving
Chicken and rice congee with ginger
A loose, savoury rice porridge with fine shreds of poached chicken and a little ginger. It is mild, there is almost nothing to chew, and it is easy to eat a few spoonfuls at a time on a day when a full plate is too much.
By The foodose editorial team. Nutrition calculated from USDA FoodData Central. Checked on paper on 16 October 2026; not yet cooked in a test kitchen or photographed, so the times and yield are estimates. How we develop our recipes
What still needs a real kitchen
- Confirm whole breasts poach to 74°C in 15 to 18 minutes at a bare simmer
- Confirm 70 g of rice breaks down to a loose porridge in 45 to 50 minutes
- Photograph the finished bowl
- Time
- About 1 hr 20 min
- estimated
- Serves
- 2
- see below
- Energy
- 385 kcal
- per serving
- Protein
- 42 g
- per serving
Ingredients for 2 servings
Check off ingredients as you go.
Contains gluten, sesame, soya. Check the labels on packaged ingredients:
- chicken stock. Stock often contains celery, and sometimes gluten or soya; check the label.
- soy sauce. Most soy sauce contains wheat. Tamari is the usual wheat-free alternative; check the label.
Cooking steps
Put the stock and the sliced ginger in a 3 litre heavy pan and bring to a bare simmer over medium heat. Lower in the chicken breasts, cover and poach at a gentle tremble, never a boil, for 15 to 18 minutes, until the chicken reaches 74°C in the thickest part.
Cooked when: 74°C / 165°F in the thickest part. A food thermometer is the reliable way to tell.
Lift the chicken onto a plate to cool. Rinse the rice in a sieve under cold water for 30 seconds and add it to the stock.
Bring back to the boil, then turn the heat to its lowest setting and simmer, partly covered, for 45 to 50 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes, scraping the base of the pan, until the grains have burst and the pot looks like a loose porridge. If it thickens past that, add hot water 100 ml at a time.
Meanwhile, pull the chicken into fine shreds with two forks. Lift the slices of ginger out of the pot.
Stir the shredded chicken and the spinach into the congee and warm for 2 to 3 minutes, until the spinach has wilted and the chicken is hot through.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the soy sauce. Ladle into bowls and leave for 5 minutes to cool a little, then finish each with a few drops of the sesame oil and the spring onion.
The useful detail
Poach the chicken in the stock before the rice goes in. The stock takes on the chicken's flavour, and the breast cooks at a gentle tremble instead of spending 45 minutes in a thick, bubbling pot, where it would turn dry and stringy.
Make it work for you
One serving is A deep bowl, half the pot, with one chicken breast shredded through it. You can switch to a smaller portion in the ingredients above; it is three quarters of this, and it contains correspondingly less energy and protein. It is an option, not a goal.
Turkey breast instead of chicken
Slightly firmer and leaner. Poach it for the same time and check the temperature the same way.
Per serving: about 10 kcal less, about 2 g more protein, about 2 g less fat.
Tamari instead of soy sauce
The same flavour, usually made without wheat.
Allergens: Tamari still contains soya. Check the label if you avoid gluten.
Leave out the sesame oil and spring onion
Plainer and milder, with nothing raw on top.
Estimated nutrition
Per standard serving, calculated from the ingredients above. Nutrition changes with substitutions, brands and how much oil stays in the pan.
Almost all the protein is the chicken; 70 g of rice between two bowls is cooked so long it is mostly liquid, which is why a soft, modest bowl still carries over 40 g.
| Energy | 385 kcal |
|---|---|
| Protein | 42 g |
| Fat | 8 g |
| of which saturates | 1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 35 g |
| of which sugars | 3 g |
| Fibre | 2 g |
| Sodium | 2,430 mg |
Show calculation notes
Each ingredient’s weight is multiplied by its USDA FoodData Central values per 100 g. The whole recipe is added up and divided by 2. Raw weights are used for meat, fish and vegetables; beans and lentils are drained weights. All of the oil is counted as eaten. Added salt is not included; sodium from stock, bread, cheese and tinned food is.
| Ingredient | Weight used | Source | Energy | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| chicken stock | 1160 g | FDC 174536Soup, chicken broth, ready-to-serve | 69 kcal | 7.4 g |
| fresh ginger | 20 g | FDC 169231Ginger root, raw | 16 kcal | 0.4 g |
| chicken breast | 300 g | FDC 171077Chicken, broiler or fryers, breast, skinless, boneless, meat only, raw | 360 kcal | 67.5 g |
| white rice | 70 g | FDC 168877Rice, white, long-grain, regular, raw, enriched | 255 kcal | 5.0 g |
| spinach | 80 g | FDC 168462Spinach, raw | 18 kcal | 2.3 g |
| soy sauce | 10 g | FDC 172473Soy sauce made from soy and wheat (shoyu), low sodium | 6 kcal | 0.9 g |
| toasted sesame oil | 4.5 g | FDC 171016Oil, sesame, salad or cooking | 40 kcal | 0.0 g |
| spring onions | 30 g | FDC 170005Onions, spring or scallions (includes tops and bulb), raw | 10 kcal | 0.5 g |
| Whole recipe | Divided by 2 | 774 kcal | 84.0 g |
Per serving the energy is rounded to the nearest 5 kcal, grams to the nearest whole gram and sodium to the nearest 10 mg. Calculation method 1.0, September 2026. How the calculation works.
Storage and reheating
- In the fridge
- Cool it quickly, cover and refrigerate within 2 hours. The FDA chart gives soups and stews 3 to 4 days. It sets thick in the fridge. Loosen it with hot water as it reheats.
- In the freezer
- The same chart gives soups and stews 2 to 3 months in the freezer for best quality.
- Reheating
- Reheat until it reaches 74°C / 165°F, steaming hot throughout, stirring so it heats evenly.
Checked against US Food and Drug Administration, Refrigerator and Freezer Storage Chart, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Leftovers and Food Safety, FoodSafety.gov, Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures and FoodSafety.gov, Cold Food Storage Chart. UK guidance from the Food Standards Agency is shorter, at two days for most leftovers.
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