Meet swamp soup, the murky green bowl that's way better than it sounds

By now, it's become self-evident that not all viral recipes are created equal. For every baked feta pasta (swoon) there are three pasta chips (hard pass).

And one of the more recent dishes that's been cropping up all over social media feeds doesn't at first seem auspicious. Let's start with the name: it's swamp soup, which might conjure up boggy standing water and perhaps the insistent drone of insects. Appetizing? Not unless you're a frog.

But if you stop your scroll for the details, you'll see that the moniker is just a playful descriptor for the vivid green hue of the dish, which is the result of a whole bunch of bright herbs, scallions, blanched spinach and jalapeƱo peppers that are all blitzed up in a blender with garlic and ginger. That bright and zingy mixture gets swirled into an otherwise relatively tame chicken-and-rice soup.

Its creator, chef and recipe developer Meredith Hayden, first posted a video of herself preparing it in October. In it she makes a bold declaration that now seems prophetic: "Chicken noodle soup better count its days, because there's a new sick-girl soup in town."

Since then, the clip has been watched more than 2.2 million times, and spawned imitators like so many schools of tadpoles. "OK, so I got influenced," one fan wrote on Instagram. "Scrolled past this glorious green bowl somewhere and had to look it up. It's so good!"

"This stuff is amaziiiiiiing," raved another.

I stumbled on the recipe at exactly the right moment. I was recovering from one of the various nasty illnesses that seemed to have felled everyone you know at some point this winter. Like many people, when I'm feeling low, I crave chicken soup and other comforting foods, many of which happen to be on the beige side of the color spectrum. But here was this verdant bowl with sinus-clearing flavors (raw garlic and ginger!) that appealed to my groggy palate.

I had enjoyed watching Hayden's series of videos last summer in which she chronicled her routine as a personal chef to the rich and famous in the Hamptons. In them, she whipped up meals with farm-stand and garden-plucked produce and herbs that had me wishing I had a staff of my own (and a sun-dappled beachfront patio, too, sigh). And swamp soup's promise of bright flavors harked back to those warmer days, even as it offered chicken-soup comfort.

One grocery-delivery order, a little simmering and blending later, I had my own bowlful. I made a few tweaks - instead of using precooked chicken and rice, I cooked both in the simmering chicken stock. That meant a longer cooking time, but it cut down on dishes. And in the recipe she posted on her blog, Hayden suggested starting out by adding only half the blender contents and tasting to see if it was too strongly flavored. I did - and proceeded to dump the entire contents in for maximum flavor.

I opted for a good squeeze of the suggested citrus on top (I used lime, because, well, its color was on-theme), as well as a drizzle of soy sauce, which offered tart and salty complements, respectively. The end result was as bracing as I had hoped, with the kick of raw garlic and the spicy, vegetal green mixture leavening the hearty, rice-thickened broth. It even tasted green.

In an email interview, Hayden said she was a little surprised that the soup took off the way it did, since it was something she put together on the fly on a night she was craving an all-in-one meal that made a big batch of to freeze. "It's always funny to see a lazy weeknight recipe that I threw together half asleep be this popular, compared to more involved recipes that took me weeks of testing to get perfect," she said.

Then again, putting herself in the shoes (or fluffy slippers) of people making her recipe might have been the key to its virality. "That's the thing, people want recipes that they can throw together when they're half asleep," she said. "An added bonus is that it tastes delicious and makes you feel good, too."

Hayden didn't even call it swamp soup in that first video. One of her fans gave it the catchy moniker - though it's not to be confused with another category of "swamp soups" popular in the South, many of which incorporate turnip greens and sausage. The many fans who have made it have also shown how customizable it is, with some using cilantro instead of parsley and dialing back or ramping up the peppers to taste. Hayden offered further ideas, suggesting that people could use whatever protein they fancied (white beans instead of chicken and a vegetable stock would make it vegetarian-friendly) and noting that if the raw aromatics are too punchy, you can simmer them until they're tamed a bit.

I've since shared the recipe with loved ones complaining of sniffles. And that's exactly what Hayden, who recently introduced a YouTube series called "Dinner With Friends" in addition to her Substack community, "the group chat," had in mind. Instead of trying to play the fickle algorithms for what might make a viral recipe, she operates with a simpler imperative: "I like to think 'Is this recipe one that I would share with my friends/one I could see my friends making for themselves and enjoying?'"

Green Chicken Soup (Swamp Soup)
ACTIVE TIME: 40 minutes. Total time:
TOTAL TIME 1 hour
MAKES: Two to four servings (about 5 cups)
STORAGE NOTE:: Refrigerate for up to 3 days

INGREDIENTS

• 5 cups unsalted or low-sodium chicken stock or broth

• 4 cups (2 3/4 ounces) loosely-packed baby spinach

• 1/3 cup long grain white rice

• 2 small skinless, boneless chicken thighs (6 ounces total)

• 1 cup loosely -packed fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, plus more for serving

• 4 medium cloves garlic

• 2 to 3 jalapenos, stemmed and seeded, plus more thin slices for serving

• 2 scallions or stalks green garlic, roughly chopped One (2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt, plus more as needed

• Freshly ground black pepper

• Soy sauce or tamari, for serving

• Lemon or lime wedges, for serving

DIRECTIONS

To a large pot over high heat, add the chicken stock and bring to a steady boil, adjust the heat as necessary. Add the spinach and cook until wilted and shrunken, 1 to 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon or spider, transfer the spinach to a heatproof blender.

Add the chicken to the stock and return it to a boil. Reduce the heat so the broth is simmering and cook until the chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board, let cool slightly, then use two forks to shred the chicken.

Add the rice to the pot, cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook until the liquid thickens and the rice begins to break apart, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, add the parsley, 1/4 cup of the stock or broth, the garlic, jalapeƱos, scallions or green garlic, ginger, and salt to the blender with the spinach. Cover loosely (see Notes), gradually increase the speed to HIGH and blend until smooth, about 1 minute, adding more chicken stock, a little at a time, if the sauce is not blending well.

Return the chicken to the pot, add half of the herb puree and stir to combine. Taste, and add more of the herb puree and/or salt, as desired. Season to taste with pepper. If the soup is not hot enough to your liking, briefly reheat over medium heat until hot, stirring frequently.

Ladle into bowls and serve with soy sauce or tamari, parsley leaves, jalapeno slices, and lemon or lime wedges, as desired.

To ensure the soup is gluten-free, use tamari, not soy sauce.

To make this vegetarian, replace the chicken with white beans and use vegetable stock.

To reduce the heat, use a single jalapeƱo or go without.

Instead of parsley, try cilantro or fresh mint.

Notes: When blending the hot puree, be careful to not fill the blender pitcher more than halfway. Remove the center ring from the lid and place a kitchen towel over the opening as you blend. This will allow steam to escape and protect you from splatters. If you're not sure your blender is heatproof or you don't have one, you can use a heatproof food processor or immersion (stick) blender instead.

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