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?
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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.
