Chicken soup is eaten in almost every country around the globe, but only the Peruvians know how to make Aguadito de Pollo!
Although it has the same basic ingredients as regular chicken soup, it includes a couple of exclusive components to Peru.
Read on to find out how this traditional Peruvian dish is made and whu it’s considered one of Peru’s favorite soups.
What Is Aguadito de Pollo?
Aguadito de Pollo is the Peruvian relative of chicken soup. It includes chicken, rice, and a variety of Peruvian vegetables.
The Peruvian folks don’t like their food plain, So, they added some components that give the soup a fun, spicy taste, such as cilantro, onions, garlic, and chile peppers.
What’s different about this latin soup is that you don’t cook all the ingredients together. The cilantro mixture, along with the spicy ingredients, are added right before serving. Meanwhile, the rice and chicken are left to cook on their own.
If you’re not a fan of chicken, you can cook Aguadito de Pollo using other variations. The soup goes well with turkey, fish, duck, mussels, and scallops. They’ll all taste good with the rest of the ingredients.
However, if you’ll be using scallops, I recommend that you keep them aside until the soup is ready.
Then, add them when the heat is off and close the lid for a few minutes. That way, they’ll subtly simmer with the rest of the ingredients.
They’re too delicate to be cooked in the soup, and you don’t want to have a mushy meal for lunch.
The History of Aguadito de Pollo
The history of Aguadito de Pollo isn’t clear; nothing pinpoints where it came from.
However, it likely dates back to the Inca culture. The Spanish colony that closely followed this era left a significant effect on Peruvian cuisine. Yet, some ingredients are pure Latin American, such as the spices and the corn.
Over the years, the Peruvian cuisine adapted to the migrating groups that found their way to the country’s shores. These groups include African, European, Japanese and Chinese immigrants.
This may be an explanation of the addition of some ingredients to the soup, such as the cilantro and lime juice.
The Peruvian soup is widely popular in Lima, particularly. So, this may have been the origin of Aguadito de Pollo. There’s another fact that strongly supports this theory, which is the Pollo a la Brasa.
Pollo a la Brasa is a chicken meal that’s often served alongside Aguadito de Pollo.
It originated from Lima, which may logically mean the soup comes from there as well.
How to Cook the Peruvian Delicious Soup: 5 Easy Steps
If you want to cook an authentic Peruvian lunch for your family in the near future, Aguadito de Pollo is your go-to meal.
I’ll show you the five easy steps you can follow to make it, but let’s start with the ingredients.
List of Ingredients for Aguadito de Pollo
- 8 chicken pieces
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 cup of diced onion
- Half a cup of vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons of cumin
- ¾ cup of peas
- ¾ cup of chopped cilantro
- Aj Amarillo sauce
- 4 medium-sized potatoes
- 1 cup of white rice
- 1 leek
- 1 chopped red bell pepper
- 5 celery stalks
Step 1: Make the Chicken Broth
The first step you should do is cook the chicken broth and leave it aside. It’s pretty simple to make.
Just pour 10 cups of water over the chicken’s head, spine, and legs.
Next, add the leek, celery stalks, and two tablespoons of salt.
Then, cover the broth pot and keep it boiling over low heat for one and a half hours. After it’s done, sieve it and discard the chicken parts.
Keep the broth aside for now; we’ll get back to it later.
Step 2: Time to Fry!
Now it’s time to fry some ingredients in vegetable oil.
Firstly, cut the chicken into pieces and season them using salt and pepper.
Afterward, lower them in the hot oil for a few minutes until they gain a light brown color.
After you’re done with the chicken, use the same oil to fry the two chopped garlic cloves, the red bell pepper, and the onion.
If you want to use the AJ Amarillo hot sauce, you can add this at this point.
When the vegetables’ colors dub and they soften a bit, you can turn the heat off and remove them.
Step 3: Back to the Broth
For this step, you’re going to add some ingredients to the broth and mix them in a blender.
However, only take one cup or less of the broth. Afterward, add the fresh cilantro and the fried garlic cloves, onion, and bell peppers.
Add the ground cumin as well before putting the mixture in a blender and turning it on.
Keep blending until you’re sure the mixture is completely smooth. Then, pour it into a soup pot.
Now, grab the remaining broth and add it to the soup pot.
Turn the heat on and leave it to boil. If you’re going to add peas or fresh bell pepper, now would be a good time to do so.
Step 4: Time for the Rice
After you add the extra ingredients to the soup pot, it’s time to add the rice, along with the chicken.
Then, leave the mixture simmering for 15 minutes or more.
After a while of simmering, add the yellow potatoes after cutting them into halves.
They should be peeled first, but that’s up to your personal preference.
Close the lid and check every few minutes.
When the potatoes start getting tender, you should turn the heat off.
Step 5: Serve!
Now, your soup should be done and ready to serve. If you notice that it got too thick for your liking, you can add some broth or water..
However, keep in mind that Aguadito de Pollo is a thick soup. It’s not too watery, like common chicken soup.
When it’s time to serve, you can add some fresh cilantro leaves for a good presentation. And bon appetit!
2 Tips for an Excellent Aguadito de Pollo
If you want to impress your family with the Aguadito de Pollo, there are some tips you can follow to make an excellent soup. Check these two tips below.
Use Fresh Veggies
While using frozen veggies is a much easier alternative, fresh veggies will make your soup more delicious.
Frozen vegetables get mushy much faster than fresh ones.
Plus, they may have been frozen and unfrozen a few times, which leaves them tasteless.
Not to mention that fresh vegetables are much more healthy, which is the whole point of the green soup!
Cilantro Is the Key to Green
If you want your soup to be as green as in the pictures, the key is cooking the cilantro for longer.
After all, it’s the main ingredient of the soup. Not only because of its distinctive flavor and its nutritional value but also because of its green color.
The longer you cook the cilantro, the greener your soup will be.
Of course, if you don’t like the color green, you can always leave the cilantro last.
Final Aguadito de Pollo Thoughts
Every country is famous for some kind of food it serves. In Peru, the green chicken soup is a part of the country’s culture. It’s almost as significant as the literature, music, and textiles that the country offers.
Aguadito de Pollo’s green ingredients are also a reflection of the Peruvian mountains and jungles. It’s not just a delicious lunch meal; it’s decades of Latin American cuisine heritage!
If you are a fan of the soup and sandwich combo, why not add Peru’s Pan con Chicharron sandwich with your Aguadito de Pollo.
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Jorge Garcia is the founder of AmigoFoods, where he has spent over 20 years helping readers discover authentic Latin American and Spanish cuisine. Raised in a Cuban-American household, Jorge learned to cook at the hands of his mother and grandmother, carrying forward generations of family recipes. That heritage, backed by his family’s four-generation history in the Latin food industry, inspired him to launch AmigoFoods in 2003. With more than 1,000 published articles on recipes, ingredients, and food culture, Jorge’s mission is simple: make authentic Latin cooking approachable for home cooks everywhere while honoring the traditions behind every dish.