Warm, rich, savory coconut creamy broth, swirls of chili oil floating on top, beautiful veg and cubes of flavor-soaked tofu, and a pile of steamy rice at your service. This soup is a cool night, sweatshirt sleeves over your palms, curl up and into a warm bowl kinda meal.

Oh, we love so many things about this one. It is super fast and so very customizable because you can play around with your protein and veg. We found it to be great for the whole fam, too. Like for example, if your kiddos find soup-eating to be the literal hardest thing in the world? Cool, cool, no prob – you can pull out the tofu and veg and just serve it on rice for them without the broth (more for you).

It’s super cozy with warm, punchy, fresh, sweet-spicy flavors, and we are so ready to curl up with big trough-y bowls of this all season long.

How To Make Thai Coconut Soup

This beauty is inspired by an absolute favorite Thai soup called Tom Kha. Traditional Tom Kha has galangal in it (the “Kha” part, the “Tom” means “soup”), which is a fragrant root vegetable that is like, ginger-adjacent, as well as kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and Thai chiles. Though these ingredients are extremely delicious, we found them a bit harder to find in our regular grocery stores. So we substituted some things like ginger, lime juice, and chili paste, while still keeping the fresh lemongrass (which is becoming increasingly more common to find, yay!), earthy mushroom and sweet red pepper, and creamy coconut milk for a definitely inspired-by-but-not-totally-authentic nod to the soup we love.

For a look at a more traditional soup, blogger and YouTuber Seonkyoung Longest has a really beautiful video and recipe post for Tom Kha Gai (made with chicken or “Gai”) that’s worth a watch. She explains a bit more about the difference between galangal and ginger as well as the other ingredients that you would traditionally see in a Tom Kha recipe.

Bringing this soup-nod together is actually pretty darn easy. You’ll get the aromatics going first, and then it’s kind of just a stack and simmer sort of deal.

1. Sauté garlic, ginger and lemongrass until super fragrant and yummy.
2. Add chili paste and any veg you like (we did mushrooms + red pepp).
3. Then add your tofu (or other protein of choice, chicken is also great) and broth and let it simmer for a bit.
4. Coconut milk goes in and deepen the flavors with some brown sugar, lemon zest, fish sauce, and fresh cilantro. Yum, yum, yum!
5. Scoop over some steamy rice, top with chili oil, more fresh cilantro…whooboy, we’re getting hungry.

So many beautiful fresh ingredients and flavors that only get better the longer they sit together (hello yes, leftovers dream!). The tofu holds its shape and texture beautifully, however, you could omit it if you like. But oh my, it is nice how that amazing broth just sneaks up into those delicious little cubes.

What To Serve With This Soup

Our favorite way to serve this champ is just ladled right over the top or alongside some fresh steamy rice. The soup is so good to scoop and slurp on its own, but we loved the extra little texture chomps that the rice provided.

Is there a limit to how much fresh cilantro you can slap onto something? Hahahaha no, just pile it on there. Shower with a fresh lime squeeze, dribble some chili oil on top, and then dribble some more because it is so spectacular.

This keeps really well for leftovers, but we would store the rice and soup separately for optimal texture success. If your soup separates a little, that’s totally okay! Just give her a good shake and she’s good to go.

Make It Your Own

We also love a good go-with-the-flow meal and this soup IS that. It is super versatile, so you can customize it to whatever you fancy. Not a tofu fan? No prob – chicken or shrimp would be outstanding. Want a bunch of other vegetables in there because, oh no, you got overzealous in the produce aisle this week? Great, toss them in!

Don’t like cilantro? How dare you, please leave. KIDDING. Other fresh herbs, like basil, would be so, so good.

However you put your signature on it, get ready to have yourself warmed from the inside out. Slurp after smile after slurp after smile, this little cozy, fragrant, rich, creamy little wonder has got your number.

Thai Coconut Soup: FAQs

Print

More Coconutty Goodness

• Spicy Instant Pot Carrot Soup (zingy in all the right ways)
• Instant Pot Cauliflower Curry (*muah muah* so good!)
• Coconut Curry Ramen (the most slurpable noodles)
• 5 Ingredient Vegan Vodka Pasta (creamy, tangy, and luscious)

The post Thai Coconut Soup with Tofu and Rice appeared first on Pinch of Yum.