A hearty and spicy chicken soup with minimal ingredients! It takes less than 30 minutes from start to finish! Still flavorful and satisfying!
This chicken soup is a simple and easy version of dakgaejang (닭개장), which is a chicken variation of yukgaejang (육개장), a hearty, spicy beef soup. I love it because the recipe calls for minimal ingredients and takes less than 30 minutes from start to finish! Still flavorful and satisfying!
Typically, dakgaejang is made with a whole chicken and lots of scallions and other vegetables such as gosari (fernbrake fiddleheads), bean sprouts, and mushrooms. In the past, I showed you how to make dakgaejang with leftovers of a roasted whole chicken or turkey, using the stock made with leftover bones.
This recipe has two main ingredients — chicken breast and scallions. The chicken can have the skin and bones. Adjust the time if using bone in. You can use chicken thighs as well. To keep the chicken tender and moist, I cook the chicken over relatively low heat. It only takes about 10 minutes to cook, and the resulting broth is nice and refreshing!
To make the soup even more delicious, use good quality chicken stock, instead of water, to boil the chicken if you want.
Since the scallion is the only vegetable in the soup, use lots of them! The large variety of scallions (daepa, 대파) is generally preferred for soups if you can find them. They are more flavorful! Lately, I’ve been able to find them in Korean markets around here.
If you want, you can always throw in some mung bean sprouts (sukju namul, 숙주나물) and/or mushrooms as well.
Dakgaejang is a summer favorite in Korea as a nourishing soup that boosts the energy level during hot summer days, but this hearty, comforting soup is great all year long! Not to mention weeknight friendly!
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Ingredients
Chicken
- 1 pound chicken breast or thigh fat removed
- 1/4 medium onion
- 1 scallion
- 4 to 5 garlic cloves
Vegetables
- 3 to 4 scallions 1 or 2 if using the large variety, cut into 2-inch pieces
Seasoning
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon gochugaru
- 1/2 tablespoon soup soy sauce gukganjang, 국간장
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- salt and pepper
Other
- 1 large egg lightly beaten
Instructions
- Add the chicken breast, onion, scallion, and garlic to a medium size pot along with 5 cups of water. Bring it to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium low. Cover, and continue to boil for about 7 to 8 minutes.
- Turn the heat off and remove the chicken to a bowl. Strain the broth into another bowl, remove any visible fat and discard the aromatic vegetables. When cool enough to handle, remove the skin and bones if any, shred the chicken and season with salt and pepper.
- In the same pot, heat the sesame oil until hot (but not smoking hot) over low heat. Add the chili pepper flakes and turn the heat off. Stir gently until the oil turns red and the chili pepper flakes become pasty. Do not burn the flakes. Mix in the soup soy sauce and garlic.
- Add the broth to the pot, and bring it to a boil. Add the meat and scallions into the stock. Continue to boil for an additional 3 – 4 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Gently drizzle the egg over the soup before turning off the heat. Do not stir. Serve with a bowl of rice.
Nemanja says
Greetings from Serbia, I have some leftover chicken and a few other ingredients and this is JUST what I was looking for!
Ana says
I finally made this soup. Amazing! We love Korean Historical Dramas and modern Dramas and love the food we’ve tried so far. Thank you for sharing your family recipes. <3 (:
Heather says
This recipe is amazing. The only adjustment I made was to add some dashima when making the chicken stock just to add a little more flavor. It was the perfect bowl of comfort on a cold day. Thank you so much for sharing your recipes with us.
Hyosun says
Great to hear that! Yay to dashima!!
DamienB says
I just found your website and made this soup. It is my first Korean home made meal. Delicious. I am lucky to live near a large Korean grocery to shop for ingredients. Looking forward to trying more of your recipes. Thank you for sharing. :))
Joyce says
This recipe was a good quick way to make the soup! However, it definitely needed more than 1 tbsp sesame oil and 1 tbsp chili powder… honestly I would say I ended up putting 3 tablespoons each. It was still bland so I added 1 more tbsp soup soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp dwenjang and 1/2 tbsp dashida. I also added 1/2 an onion into the soup with the chicken and green onions.
My suggestion: Taste this recipe as you go and add more flavorings as necessary.
Thank you for the “base” recipe to start with! I never learned how to make dakgaejang and this was easy to go along with!
Hyosun says
Hello Joyce – Great that you made adjustments to your taste. That’s what’s great about home cooking. This is a relatively small batch that was meant to be simple and easy, as I stated in the opening sentence. I do have other full dakgaejang and yukgaejang recipes on this blog with more ingredients.
US Army Soldier says
So good. I used gochujang instead of the red pepper flakes.
Tom Dullum says
I made this tonight to use up a couple of chicken breasts. It was excellent. The Taiwanese student who lives with me didn’t hesitate to have a second bowl. Very light and quick to prepare. Thank you!
Hyosun says
Great! Thanks for letting me know.
Myung Moon says
Can I convert this recipe using Instapot? I made a batch last night but my family finished it. It was so easy. Second batch I want to try it with Instapot.
Your suggestion would be appreciated.
Hyosun says
This is such a quick version of dakgaejang, so I’m not sure if it will save you any time. But, you can try it in the Instant Pot.
Franziska Schroder says
This is great dish for weeknights. It’s easy and so delicious! I only recently came across this website, but I like the recipes almost a bit better than Maangchi’s.
Anne says
I made it last night for dinner, it was amazing. Although I was short on garlic, so I made some adjustment. I used only 1 garlic for boiling the chicken and instead use 1/4 onion, I used 1/2 to compensate for the lack of garlic.
I also use only 1/2 tsp minced garlic with 1/2 tsp onion. But it was a bit bland, so I add half of quartered kimchi with 3 tbs juice, and 1/2 tbs more soy sauce.
I guess kimchi salvage everything. I hope my suggestions would help.
Hyosun says
Kimchi is the magic ingredient!
Barbara Davis says
My husband rarely experiences flu-symptoms, and usually doesn’t like soup; however, since he craved for some, I checked out this recipe.
I haven’t been able to find gosari (fernbrake fiddleheads) in Flagstaff, and my husband’s not a fan of bean sprouts, so I added shiitake mushrooms and his favorite vegetable, baby bok choy.
I added more red pepper flakes since we both love our spicy foods with an extra kick, but followed everything else as stated.
Thank you so much Ms. Hyosun for this refreshingly delicious soup recipe!
Wishing you and your loved ones a Happy New Year of 2019, overflowing with much inner-peace, great health, wisdom, authenticity, prosperity, every stepping stone of success, freedom, mucho $$, adventures, humor, fun, joy, creativity, Unconditional Love (for self and interconnected Life), and anything else your hearts desire. ^_^
Hyosun says
Aww nice! Love to hear you made adjustments to the recipe to make it work for you. And thank you so much for all the wonderful words and wishes! Happy New Year to you and your family as well!
Ricardo says
14 cups of water was too much water when i tried it, it was too diluted
Hyosun says
hmmm… 14 cups? The recipe calls for 5 cups of water.
Saerom says
I like yookgaejang but it’s definitely not something I would try to make on a whim, but this was delicious! I did add quite a bit of salt to get the flavor to come out nicely. I shared this recipe with some korean friends and they are doubtful it can taste that good with such minimal ingredients so I’m curious what they think when they make it! Thank you!
Hyosun says
They will like it as much as you do — I hope! Thanks for coming by and leaving me a note. Really appreciate it.
Joe says
i put too much chili. it blew my brains out. that was my fault, thought I could handle it. my spice level aside, it was so good, simple, quick and healthy. love all the recipes here! going to make it again with a bit less chili 🙂
Cotter says
It looks like you’re using more than 1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes in the picture on step 3 so I added an additional tablespoon of red pepper flakes and the dish still has no flavor. How much gochugaru did you use?
Hyosun says
The amount of gochugaru mostly determines the spicy level. If the soup had no flavor, you probably needed more salt, which will bring out the flavor.
Jean says
Can you make this in a slow cooker? If so, how would you change the recipe?
Ps. I love your recipes!!
Lila says
Great recipe! Easy to prepare and very tasty:-)
Hyosun says
Thank you!
Steve says
Hi
You are making wonderful recipes for those of us interested in real Korean food.
In general is there a way to lessen the heat after this dish is prepared? Some of my family would like it less spicy. What could be added without harming the flavor of the soup? Or does one just lessen the amount of the spicy ingredients?
Steve
Hyosun says
Thank you, Steve! yes, just use less gochugaru to make it mild.
sharon carey says
Your recipes are just amazing… I think I was born into the wrong nationality! I should have been born Korean!
Thanks for your blog,
Sharon Carey
Hyosun says
Ha ha Sharon — I’m glad you like Korean food! Thanks for the kind words!
Georgianna says
What do you mean by soup soy sauce?
Hyosun says
It’s Korean traditional soy sauce made as a byproduct of making doenjang (soybean paste).It’s lighter in color but has a deep flavor. I’ve linked to a photo of it.