With the winter season fast approaching, we offer the last installment in our low carbohydrate recipe collection. Each of these low-carb Chinese soups has less than 20 grams of carbohydrate per serving, and all are very nutritious.
Traditionally in China, a soup was part of every meal. Irene Kuo wrote:
In China, no meal is served without a soup. Not only are the soups full of good things, but a soup acts as the beverage during the meal. Contrary to the custom of Chinese restaurants in this country [the US], water or tea is never served with a meal in China. Presiding over the surrounding dishes, a large bowl or tureen is invariably placed in the center of the table and diners spoon a little soup into their soup or rice bowls from time to time throughout the meal.
Kuo, Irene. The Key to Chinese Cooking, p. 172. 1977, Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
Low-carb Chinese Soup Recipes Image Credit: Glenn Emerson for My Chinese Home Kitchen, 2024.
If you are trying to reduce starch in your diet, you may want to forego the Winter Melon and Corn Soup, but the rest are all low in starch too. The easiest to make are the chicken soup and the mushroom soup. You can make your own chicken soup stock or bone broth, too. This is a great way to save money without much effort. If you buy whole chickens and cut them into breasts, thighs and wings yourself, it’s much cheaper per pound than buying cut-up chicken. Just throw the bones and skin in a stock pot, add some ginger and green onion, cover with water, and leave it to simmer for several hours while you are working or doing household chores.
Low carbohydrate Chinese soup recipes
Stewed Lion’s Head
Stewed lion's head is a traditional Chinese banquet dish in Jiangsu Province, China, which belongs to the Huaiyang tradition of Suzhou cuisine. So why is this dish called "Lion's Head"? Because this dish uses pork to chop and make large meatballs, the dish embodies a sense of majesty and domineering, so it is named "Lion's Head." In terms of choosing ingredients, the ratio of fat to lean pork is best 3:7. The stewed lion's head is soft, fat but not greasy. Today, we're going to make a simplified version of a stewed lion's head.
Winter melon soup is a homemade soup based on winter melon. Winter melon soup is popular in Jiangnan and northern China. It is very simple to prepare, and is often cooked in family kitchens. Whether it is served with rice, noodles, or alone, it is delicious. People say that wax gourd has the effect of reducing weight and fat. Today, I will use corn and winter melon to cook a soup. This is a healthy, delicious vegetarian soup.
In China, we like to use freshness to evaluate a soup. This simple mushroom soup recipe is an easy way to experience this concept. By this, we mean the flavor of the ingredients creating the flavor of the soup. In China, we use water instead of seasoned soup stock, and we let the ingredients create the flavor in the broth. When you cook a soup, if you can let the flavor of the ingredients blend into the soup, then the soup is already 70% successful, and people can taste the ingredients of the soup when they eat it. Do you want to know what this easy mushroom soup tastes like? If you are interested, you can make it with us.
In Chinese cuisine, in addition to the basic seasonings of salt, sugar, and light soy sauce we all know, there is another special, healthy flavoring ingredient: chicken soup or broth. In China, chicken soup is popular for its nutrition. It helps sick people recover from illness, and breastfeeding women also like to drink chicken soup. Professional Chinese chefs make large volumes of chicken stock or broth, to be used in many dishes. They will use up this stock in 1 to 2 days, but such large quantities are not needed at home.This simple homemade chicken soup can be used to flavor other dishes, or as a broth to cook noodles, or served as soup for two people.
Hey, today we're going to make a weird dish! Why is it a strange dish? Because it has some ingredients that most people can't accept. In Cabbage egg soup, we don't just use eggs. This soup contains fresh chicken eggs, preserved eggs, and salted duck eggs. Maybe these eggs sound strange to you, but the soup tastes really delicious. If you want to learn about the strange eggs in this dish, then check out my detailed description of peeled eggs and salted duck eggs. If you come to China one day, you will find that these strange eggs appear in Chinese supermarkets, wet markets, and family kitchens. Because they have a special taste, some people like them, some people can't accept them, let me guess if you will like it or reject it?
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Chen Jing
I was born in Guangxi. As long as I remember, I have liked cooking.
When I was a child, my dream was to become a gourmet and travel the world to taste the food of various countries. My ambition is to become a chef. The kitchen is my partner. There are many kinds of Chinese cuisine, there are 8 kinds, reflecting the richness and diversity of Chinese geography and history. I am very happy to share with you Chinese cuisine and cultural traditions.
