Healthy Snow Fungus Soup with Red Dates

Feeling under the weather? This deliciously healthy and nutritious Chinese soup will guarantee to make you feel so much better, plus it takes no effort to make!

A new year calls for a new healthy start! Here is a super easy vegan soup to make this winter that is great as a snack or dessert and requires only a few ingredients. I grew up drinking this soup prepared by my grandparents whenever we were feeling the oncoming of a cold or flu. Packed full of super foods like red dates, goji berries, white snow fungus, and sweet Asian pears it’s especially great to soothe a sore throat or cough and make you feel all good inside!

The soup itself is simple in taste, slightly sweet from the rock sugar and dates (you can make it sweeter for dessert if you prefer) and has a nice fruity floral aroma from the fragrant Asian pears. For those unfamiliar with snow fungus, you can find it in it’s dried form in most Asian grocery stores (see link). It really looks like a spongey loofa that belongs in the bathroom haha!

Once hydrated it becomes this beautiful fluffy translucent mushroom and after boiling for a few hours it becomes this luxuriously silky texture that adds a bit of thickness and body to the soup. The silkiness is really great to soothe your throat plus it’s fun to eat! This is a basic recipe but I’ve seen some versions that add a bit of lotus seed or Chinese almonds to the soup for added flavor.

I really like this recipe because all you need to do is boil all the ingredients in a pot for 1.5 h and you’re done, yes that simple! Great for when you feel super lazy…little effort for maximum results! Give it a try this week and let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Happy eating!

Healthy Snow Fungus Soup with Red Dates

Prep time: 5 min     
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Total time: 1 h 35 min   
Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 dried snow fungus
• 6 dried red dates
• 1 Asian pear
• 10 goji berries
• 1/4 cup rock sugar or white sugar
• 6 cups water

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, rehydrate the dried snow fungus in water for 2 hours at room temperature.
2. Trim off the hard stem and carefully break the fungus into small pieces.
3. Place 6 cups of water in large pot, add the snow fungus and dates then bring to a boil. Once boiling, simmer on low covered for 1 h.
4. After 1 h of simmering, peel and chop the Asian pear into 1/2 inch pieces and add it into the soup along with the goji berries and rock sugar. Continue to simmer for another 30 min.
5. Serve warm and enjoy!