• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Start Here
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Growing Fruit
    • Growing Herbs
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Books & Classes
    • Classes
    • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

Cold and Flu Soup Recipe

December 26, 2018 by Jeanne

This cold and flu soup recipe infuses homemade bone broth with herbs thought to boost your resistance to viruses. Garlic (for immunity) and thyme (for upper respiratory health) are both warming herbs that help combat colds and flu.

Cold and Flu Soup Recipe (Plus It Tastes Good)

I woke up yesterday with what I’ve dubbed a weird upper respiratory thing. It’s more like my larynx is inflamed; it’s red-hot and itchy. I have no idea what the heck this means, but I do know that I have no voice! I sound all croaky and cough sometimes, a dry unproductive cough that hurts my throat. It’s more like my throat it irritated and I want to cough than anything else.

I feel fine. But, just in case…I began my herbal remedies today.

First, early this morning I prepared a steam infusion of lavender, sage, and thyme. One teaspoon of each went into a cheesecloth bag over which I poured about 3 cups of boiling water. Then I made a tent from a towel and hung over the bowl of steam for a blissful 10 minutes…it was like a sauna. I coughed a bit more, and felt the constriction in my upper throat ease up a bit.

Next, elderberry syrup…I made my wintertime’s worth of elderberry syrup. I use a kit obtained from a local herbalist, Beth Reynolds at Long Ears Herbs in Pamplin, Virginia. It’s very handy to have an entire kit ready in the pantry for just such an occasion and her recipe tastes (and smells) heavenly. Once prepared, the syrup maintains freshness for up to three months if kept refrigerated.  I have instructions to prepare your own elderberry syrup recipe if you cannot obtain a simple kit.

Lastly, I made this soup. It is reminiscent of the Progresso Escarole soup that I cannot find on the grocery store shelves anymore. I’ve canned turkey and chicken bone broth, and those Mason jars of canned broth come in handy when you want some healthy bone broth and stock to make soup. Fresh kale, diced into ribbons and cooked into the broth, plus fresh mushrooms and garlic cooked into the soup along with black pepper and thyme add to the broth’s warming, supportive nature.

Plus, it tastes good. You can’t go wrong with food that’s both good for you and good tasting, right?

If you enjoyed this recipe, you may also like:

  • How to Make Elderberry Syrup
  • Easy Homemade Soup Recipe
  • Tofu and Napa Cabbage Stir Fry
  • Easy Sweet Potato Soup Recipe
  • A New Use for Kale
Jeanne
Jeanne

Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.

Tweet
Share
Pin3
Share10
13 Shares

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Previous Post: « About the Mistletoe Plant
Next Post: Pruning Crape Myrtle – the Basics »

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

My Books on Amazon

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Visit my author page on Amazon to find all of my fiction and gardening books.

Herbal Academy Teachers

Footer

a browned overcooked coconut bar on a blue flowered plate

Recipe Fail – Coconut Bars

Each weekend, I dig out my favorite cookbook – the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 13th Edition. I flip through the pages, skimming the recipes, checking to see if I have the ingredients to make those that catch my eye. And then, I make the recipe, usually late Sunday afternoon after all the chores are done. It’s…

Read More

peach tree cuttings in a pot on a windowsill

Propagating Peach Trees from Softwood Cuttings

We decided that propagating peach trees from softwood cuttings was the way to go when we couldn’t find the variety we wanted at the store this past week. The best eating peach we’ve ever grown here at Seven Oaks Farm is “Red Haven.” It was recommended by our neighbor, a man whose family has farmed…

Read More

soul in a yellow mug against pine panelling

Made From Scratch Chicken Vegetable Soup Recipe

This is the best made-from-scratch chicken vegetable soup recipe you’ll ever taste. It’s a favorite of my family and I’m betting it will quickly become a favorite of your family’s, too. As part of my ongoing quest to test and taste every recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook 100th Edition, I’ve made the Vegetable Soup…

Read More

A loaf of bread on a plate

Water Bread – Recipe Review

Once you make water bread, you’ll never eat store bought white bread again. In fact, you won’t be able to look at a loaf of “white bread” from the market and consider it bread, in any sense of the word, after you’ve taken a bite of the real thing. Hot. Crunchy crust. Tender, flaky, soft…

Read More

Copyright © 2022 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme