Chef Makoa
ʻAʻama (Hawaiian Black Rock Crab with Paʻakai)
Hawaiʻi's reef-gathered ʻaʻama, the small black rock crab from the shoreline stones, boiled quick in salty water and picked whole at the lūʻau table beside ʻopihi.
Culinary Explorer
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Chicken Long Rice (Hawaiian Ginger Chicken and Glass Noodle Soup)
Created by
Hawaiʻi's lūʻau comfort: shredded chicken, slippery long rice noodles, and a clear ginger broth that drinks halfway to soup, born from Chinese hands and kept at the local table.
Soups & Stews
Polynesian, Hawaiian
Comfort Food
Celebration
Potluck
20 min
Active Time
45 min cook•1 hr 5 min total
Yield6 to 8 servings
The lūʻau table in Hawaiʻi has the deep foods and the later ones sitting shoulder to shoulder, and that's the truth of how we eat. Poi and paʻiʻai, the pounded kalo, carry Hāloa, our elder brother. Kālua puaʻa comes from the imu, the earth oven. Then right there beside them is chicken long rice, warm and gingery, born from the Chinese camps and made local by the hands of Hawaiʻi families who fed everybody from one pot.
This dish belongs to Hawaiʻi. Not old in the same way as poi, not canoe-crop food, but still loved, still part of the feast, still somebody's auntie making sure the tray doesn't run empty. The noodles are bean-thread glass noodles, called long rice here, and they drink the chicken broth until they go clear and slippery. Ginger wakes it up. Garlic backs it up. Green onion comes at the end so the bowl doesn't go flat.
Across the Triangle, every island has foods that came later and became family at the table. Sāmoa has sapasui, chop suey made its own with glass noodles and soy. Tonga has its own feast-table versions too. Back home, this is the Hawaiian one, clear broth instead of dark sauce, soft chicken instead of meat browned hard, a side dish that eats almost like soup. Same ocean, many histories, every island naming its own hand.
So cook it unfussy. Use good chicken, simmer it gentle, and don't let the noodles turn to mush. Eat what you have, yeah? A pot like this is not trying to impress anybody. It is trying to feed the room.
Chicken long rice grew out of nineteenth-century Hawaiʻi, when Chinese laborers and cooks brought bean-thread noodles, ginger, and broth traditions into the plantation world, and local families folded them into the lūʻau spread. It is Hawaiian food, not pre-contact deep food, and that distinction matters: poi, laulau, and kālua puaʻa come from older Native Hawaiian foodways, while chicken long rice shows how Hawaiʻi also became a shared table of immigrant camps, home kitchens, and celebration food. Its cousins are not one blurred dish, but named island adaptations, like Sāmoan sapasui, where glass noodles took another road into another people's feast.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
bone-in chicken thighs or drumsticks
Quantity
2 pounds
bean-thread glass noodles (long rice)
Quantity
8 ounces
low-sodium chicken broth or water
Quantity
8 cups
fresh ginger
Quantity
1 (3-inch) piece
peeled and thinly sliced
garlic cloves
Quantity
5
smashed
yellow onion
Quantity
1 medium
thinly sliced
soy sauce (shoyu)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
plus more to taste
Hawaiian sea salt or coarse sea salt
Quantity
2 teaspoons
plus more to taste
neutral oil
Quantity
1 tablespoon
green onions
Quantity
4
thinly sliced, whites and greens separated
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
to taste
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| bone-in chicken thighs or drumsticks | 2 pounds |
| bean-thread glass noodles (long rice) | 8 ounces |
| low-sodium chicken broth or water | 8 cups |
| fresh gingerpeeled and thinly sliced | 1 (3-inch) piece |
| garlic clovessmashed | 5 |
| yellow onionthinly sliced | 1 medium |
| soy sauce (shoyu)plus more to taste | 2 tablespoons |
| Hawaiian sea salt or coarse sea saltplus more to taste | 2 teaspoons |
| neutral oil | 1 tablespoon |
| green onionsthinly sliced, whites and greens separated | 4 |
| freshly ground black pepper | to taste |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy 6-quart soup pot or Dutch oven
- •Kitchen shears for cutting softened long rice
- •Fine skimmer or large spoon for skimming broth
Instructions
- 1
Soak the noodles
Put the long rice, the bean-thread glass noodles, in a wide bowl and cover with warm water. Let them soften 15 to 20 minutes, until they bend without snapping, then drain and cut once or twice with kitchen shears so they are easy to serve. Don't make them tiny. Long rice should still feel long.
- 2
Wake the broth
Warm the oil in a heavy pot over medium heat. Add the ginger, garlic, onion, and the white parts of the green onions, and cook just until the kitchen smells sharp and sweet, 2 to 3 minutes. No need brown everything hard. This broth wants to stay clean.
- 3
Simmer the chicken
Add the chicken, broth or water, shoyu, and salt. Bring it up to a gentle boil, then lower to a steady simmer and skim off any gray foam that rises. Cook 30 to 35 minutes, until the chicken is tender and pulls from the bone without arguing.
Bone-in chicken gives the broth body. Boneless works on a weeknight, but the broth will be thinner, so taste it carefully at the end. - 4
Shred and return
Lift the chicken onto a plate. When it is cool enough to handle, pull the meat from the bones and shred it into generous pieces. Return the chicken to the pot and taste the broth. It should be clear, gingery, lightly salty, and good enough to sip by itself.
- 5
Cook the long rice
Add the drained noodles to the simmering broth and cook 5 to 8 minutes, stirring gently, until they turn glassy and drink in the chicken flavor. Watch close now. Undercooked long rice is springy in the wrong way, but overcooked long rice loses itself. You want slippery, clear, and soft, not broken down.
- 6
Finish and share
Turn off the heat and stir in most of the green onion tops and black pepper. Taste again for salt or shoyu, then let the pot sit 5 minutes so the noodles settle into the broth. Serve warm in a deep bowl or as part of the lūʻau spread, with extra green onion over the top. Enough for one more, always.
Chef Tips
- •Long rice keeps drinking broth as it sits. If the pot gets too thick, add hot broth or water and season again. No blame the noodles. That's what they do.
- •Use fresh ginger, not powder. The ginger is the clean line running through the whole dish, and dried ginger turns the broth muddy.
- •For a potluck, cook the chicken and broth ahead, then add the soaked noodles close to serving. That's how you keep them glossy and loose instead of swollen and tired.
- •This is Hawaiian local food, and local food is honest about its history. Serve it beside poi, laulau, poke, kālua puaʻa, rice, or whatever your table has. Keeper, not gatekeeper.
Advance Preparation
- •Make the chicken broth base up to 2 days ahead, chill it with the shredded chicken in the broth, and skim any set fat before reheating.
- •Soak and cut the long rice up to 2 hours ahead, drain it well, and keep it covered so it doesn't dry out.
- •For the best potluck texture, reheat the broth first, then simmer the noodles in the hot broth shortly before serving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 360g)
Calories
300 calories
Total Fat
10 g
Saturated Fat
2 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
7 g
Cholesterol
95 mg
Sodium
1000 mg
Total Carbohydrates
31 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
2 g
Protein
21 g
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