Yakhni (Chicken Soup With Cilantro and Green Chiles)
Published April 18, 2025
- Total Time
- About 2¼ hours
- Prep Time
- 15 minutes
- Cook Time
- 2 hours
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2tablespoons ghee or neutral oil (such as vegetable or canola)
- 1medium white onion, halved
- 18 to 20whole black peppercorns
- 2tablespoons cumin seeds
- 8 to 10whole cloves
- 3cinnamon sticks
- 1head garlic or about 12 unpeeled garlic cloves
- 1(5-inch) piece ginger
- 1whole chicken, cut into 2 to 4 large pieces, or 5½ pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces
- 6 to 8chicken feet (optional), see Tip
- 3quarts unsalted chicken stock or water
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Lemon wedges, sliced Thai green chiles and chopped cilantro, for serving
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Preparation
- Step 1
In a large stock pot, heat ghee on high for 1 minute. Add onion, cut-side down, and cook until the surface touching the pot blackens and smells like it’s burning. Adjust heat to medium and add the peppercorns, cumin seeds and cloves. Toast until spices are aromatic, about 30 seconds.
- Step 2
Add cinnamon sticks, garlic, ginger, chicken pieces and chicken feet (if using). Add stock, adjust heat to high and bring to a boil. When boiling, adjust to a simmer; there should be some bubbles rising to the surface but the liquid should not be boiling. Simmer for 2 hours, occasionally skimming off the foam that rises to the top.
- Step 3
Remove the chicken pieces from the pot using tongs and place it on a cutting board. Let the chicken cool for a few minutes, then use a fork and knife to carefully remove the meat from the bones and set aside. Return the chicken bones to the pot, return to a boil, then adjust heat so the broth is simmering again. Simmer for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 hours more, until the broth is rich and flavorful, adding water if needed to keep the bones submerged.
- Step 4
Pour broth through a fine-mesh strainer into a smaller pot and stir in salt to taste. To serve, reheat the broth if necessary and ladle into bowls. Add some or all of the chicken meat, and finish with spritzes of lemon, grinds of black pepper, green chile and cilantro to taste. (Use any leftover broth to fortify other meals, or freeze for up to 3 months.)
- Chicken feet add collagen to the soup, which gives it a silky texture and adds richness. Source these from your local butcher.
Private Notes
Comments
First! Might try this - the spices are not my usual go-to for chicken soup. What veggies would be traditional for a Pakistani soup? All that lovely broth without so much as a carrot kinda tweaks me lol.
@Thom I just watched a Pakistani video and she used carrots, cabbage, red onion and some leafy green I couldn’t identify. I agree about veggies and will add these to the second boil!
Many years ago a Jewish Afghani acquaintance gave me a recipe similar to this one - it included turmeric & i think cumin and had huge chunks of gold potato in it. Fabulous to fight a cold!
After 2 hours chicken meat is tasteless and tough. I take meat off the bones within one hour while it's delicious and juicy.. i then put bones back in stock & cook until stock is perfect. The perfectly cooked chicken meat is delicious in the soup but in anything you use it in.
Just made this and the broth is very yummy! It has really amplified by standard chicken broth.
This was really really good. Really good. I think the quality of the finished dish will depend a lot on your cooking liquid. I used some pretty hardcore homemade chicken stock I had in my freezer that had already been enriched with chicken feet. You could make this with store stock or water and it would still be good, no doubt. But if you have access to really good homemade stock or can buy it from your butcher it will take the dish to a different level. Don’t be afraid of using lots of lemon. We made a half recipe and juiced almost two lemons and it was great. A few squirts from wedges would be nice but I feel like amping up the lemon was the right move. The only major change I would make to the recipe is charring the onion. Charring face down in ghee in the pan made the pan a pain to clean. Next time I will use a blowtorch on the cut surfaces. If you don’t have a torch I’d recommend cut side up under a hot broiler. Will definitely be making g this again.
@Jim did you return the skin to the pot together with the bones? Thx
@Name Smitha Yes, added both the skin and bones back to the pot.
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