A warming AIP chicken pho built in the Instant Pot with sweet potato noodles and fresh herbs

Pho asks for a produce-aisle detour you were not planning on: a piece of cinnamon stick, a couple of whole cloves, a bag of sweet potato noodles instead of rice ones, fresh mint and cilantro by the handful. On a day when the protocol already asks you to plan every meal in advance, one more errand can feel like too much, and this one is worth the extra stop. It reheats well, so make the whole pot when you have 20 minutes to spare and eat off it for the rest of the week.

The broth carries the real weight of this bowl. Glycine, the building block your gut lining pulls from as it heals, comes through in every ladleful, and the fresh ginger simmered in breaks down into gingerol, which tends to sit easier with a stomach that has been through a lot lately. None of it takes 15 ingredients to earn its keep; a good broth does most of that on its own.

Set the bowl down, breathe in the steam before the first bite, and notice how differently the fresh herbs land than anything else you have eaten this week. A pot this fragrant, cooked for yourself on a weeknight, is worth whatever extra shopping it took to get there.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground chicken, brought to room temperature
• 2 tablespoons avocado oil or coconut oil
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• A 2-inch by 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
• 2 whole cloves
• One 1-inch piece of cinnamon stick
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 4 cups chicken or beef bone broth (homemade or a clean-label AIP-compliant store-bought broth)
• 4 cups filtered water
• About 1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
• One 12-oz pack dried sweet potato noodles
• 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped
• 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, finely chopped

Method

Set the Instant Pot to its saute setting and warm the avocado or coconut oil. Add the sliced onion and chopped celery and cook until they soften, a few minutes, stirring so they do not catch. Stir in the grated fresh ginger, the whole cloves, the cinnamon stick, and the ground ginger, and let them bloom in the warm oil until fragrant.

Add the ground chicken and break it up with a spoon, cooking just until it loses its raw pink color. Pour in the bone broth and the filtered water, and add the sea salt. Stir to lift anything from the bottom of the pot.

Lock the lid and set the valve to sealing. Cook on high pressure for about 8 minutes, then let the pressure release naturally for about 10 minutes before releasing any remaining pressure manually. Open carefully, fish out the cinnamon stick and cloves, and taste for salt.

While the broth cooks, prepare the sweet potato noodles in a separate pot of hot water according to the package, then drain. Divide the noodles among bowls, ladle the hot broth and chicken over them, and finish each bowl with a generous scatter of chopped mint and cilantro. Serve warm.

Stovetop variation

If you would rather use the stovetop, warm the oil in a large soup pot, soften the onion and celery, bloom the ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and ground ginger, then brown the chicken. Add the broth and water, bring to a gentle boil, then lower to a simmer and cook uncovered for about 30 minutes so the flavors deepen. Finish the same way, over the cooked noodles, with the fresh herbs.

*Adapted from autoimmunewellness.com*