Nam Yoon-su’s Soy Milk Chicken Soup: Ingredients and When to Add the Soy Milk
Nam Yoon-su’s soy milk chicken soup uses bite-sized chicken, unsweetened soy milk and three kinds of mushrooms. Despite the Korean recipe title duyu samgyetang, the published ingredient list does not call for a whole stuffed chicken, glutinous rice or ginseng. If you are looking for the version from KBS Fun-staurant, start with this distinction.
Photo: KBS Fun-staurant.
The ingredients in the official recipe
KBS published this recipe for Episode 231. Its liquid base is 300 ml water and 400 ml unsweetened soy milk, seasoned with Korean soup soy sauce. Sweetened soy drinks would change that balance, so check the carton rather than choosing any drink labelled soy milk.
- 600 g boneless chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 400 ml unsweetened soy milk
- 300 ml water
- 2 tablespoons Korean soup soy sauce (guk-ganjang)
- 100 g enoki mushrooms
- 5 shiitake mushrooms
- 4 chamsongi mushrooms
- 6 leaves of baby napa cabbage
- Half a large green onion
- 8 stalks crown daisy greens (ssukgat)
- Sesame seeds, ground for finishing
The KBS page does not give a serving count. Chicken is listed as boneless chicken without a specific breast-or-thigh instruction. Chamsongi is the mushroom name used in the original; if your store does not carry it, choosing another mushroom is an adaptation rather than the exact published recipe.
Prepare the vegetables before heating the pot
Trim the bases of the enoki and shiitake mushrooms. Score a cross on each shiitake cap. Trim and quarter the chamsongi mushrooms, cut the cabbage into roughly 3 cm pieces, and slice the green onion diagonally. Cut each crown daisy stalk into three sections, keeping those greens for the final step.
Having these ingredients ready matters because the written method adds the vegetables soon after the initial liquid boils. You do not need to improvise a separate frying stage: the chicken starts directly in the water and soup soy sauce.
When to add the soy milk
- Put the water, chicken and soup soy sauce into a pot. Bring to a boil over high heat.
- Add all three mushrooms, the green onion and napa cabbage. Boil for three minutes.
- Add the unsweetened soy milk. Partially cover and continue cooking for about seven to ten minutes. KBS specifically says to reduce the heat to medium once the soy milk boils.
- Finish with the crown daisy greens and freshly ground sesame seeds.
The seven-to-ten-minute window belongs to the stage after adding soy milk; it is not the total preparation time. Chicken piece size, starting temperature and the stove affect cooking, so the clock alone should not be treated as proof that every piece is cooked through.
What does the Korean title mean here?
Duyu means soy milk. Although samgyetang commonly brings a whole chicken soup to mind, this particular published version has a different structure. It uses small chicken pieces and mushrooms in a soy-milk broth. Calling it Nam Yoon-su’s soy milk chicken soup makes that practical difference clearer for readers buying ingredients outside Korea.
The recipe is a useful reference if you want to follow his televised dish, but it is not presented here as a personal taste test or a nutritional calculation. The source supplies no calorie figure or tested storage duration, and those numbers should not be inferred from the ingredients.
Before you shop
Look for unsweetened soy milk and distinguish Korean soup soy sauce from a sweet dipping sauce. Check mushroom labels, and keep the finishing greens separate while preparing the other vegetables. The original directions remain the best reference for matching the dish; any substitutions should be understood as your own variation.
Read the original KBS recipe · Korean →
Source: KBS Fun-staurant, Episode 231. Checked November 1, 2026.