A delicious Thai chicken soup, with rice and mushrooms, all in a lightly creamy Thai flavoured red curry broth. A deliciously different chicken and rice soup!
This Thai chicken soup is chock full of flavour, with the wonderful Thai flavours of red curry paste, fish sauce, lemongrass and coconut milk.
Customize this Thai chicken soup recipe to your own taste preferences, making it as wicked (or not) as you like!
Ingredients and substitutions
A few notes about the key ingredients …
Chicken – I generally use boneless chicken breasts, though boneless skinless chicken thighs are fine here, too. If you happen to have left-over cooked chicken, you can certainly use that and skip the step of cooking the chicken ahead. Finally, make it super easy by using shredded rotisserie chicken.
Lemongrass Paste – look for this in a tube, generally in the produce section. You can also use lemongrass stalks, if you have easy access to them. While the flavour is a lovely addition, you can omit.
Half and Half Cream – this is 10% b.f. cream. You can substitute milk, but your soup will be less creamy. For a non-dairy soup, replace the cream with more coconut milk.
Coconut Milk – I like to use regular coconut milk for the creaminess and thickness, but lite will work here as well.
Thai Red Curry Paste – I prefer red curry paste in this soup. If you only have green or yellow, you can use, though the flavour profile will be a bit different.
Sambal Oelek – this is the spicy Asian Chili sauce that is largely responsible for the “Wicked” part of this soup. It packs a punch, so use to taste or omit if you don’t want any heat. Asian Chili Garlic Sauce is a good substitute or even Sriracha.
Rice – any cooked rice is fine here, but I find classic long-grain rice tends to work best. Basmati or Jasmine should also work well.
Recipe tips!
- One important note about this soup! You don’t want to combine the soup with the rice until right before you will be eating it. If you’re cooking rice at the same time you are making the soup, simply spoon some warm rice into a bowl and spoon the hot soup overtop. If you are starting with leftover rice, simply warm slightly before adding to bowl and spooning the hot soup over top.
- Likewise, if you have leftover soup and rice, refrigerate separately. To reheat, you can add the rice to the soup to reheat, as long as you will be consuming right away.
- The reason for this? The rice soaks up the soup as it sits, quickly resulting in a bowl of rice instead of a bowl of soup.
- Start with leftover cooked chicken (or chicken from a rotisserie chicken) and/or leftover cooked rice to make this soup even more quickly!
Top tip!
Change it Up! Use Asian rice noodles instead of rice. Simply soak or cook any Asian rice noodle and add some to the bowl before spooning over the hot soup.
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Get the Recipe: Wicked Thai Chicken Soup
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons cooking oil, such as vegetable or canola oil
- 1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 medium red bell pepper, cored and seeded then sliced into thin 2-inch strips
- 8 oz mushrooms, white or cremini recommended
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 6 oz chicken breast, diced or cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon lemongrass paste, or 1-2 stalks lemongrass, optional
- 1 cup half and half (10%) cream, or use 1 cup more coconut milk instead
- 1/2 cup coconut milk, 1 small can or if using a large can stir coconut milk first, then measure out
- 2 teaspoons red curry paste
- 1 teaspoon Sambal Oelek chili paste, or Asian Garlic Chili Paste/Sriracha
- 3 Tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
To finish soup:
- 2 cups cooked rice, long grain white, basmati or brown rice or try a mix of long grain with wild rice for some added texture
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
For garnish:
- Fresh cilantro, parsley or basil, chopped
- Lime wedges, for drizzling
Instructions
- Make this soup as Wicked (or not), as you like! If you love bold flavours, go ahead and add more of the lemongrass, curry paste and Sambal etc., to your taste preference. If you don't want any heat, simply omit the Sambal altogether. Don't forget to taste and add salt at the end of cooking, as needed, to really bring out all the great flavours.
- Start the rice cooking. *You can cook the rice ahead and refrigerate or you can use left-over cooked rice.
- Heat a large soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add 1 Tbsp. oil. When hot, add mushrooms and cook until golden and tender. Remove to a plate. In the same pot, add another 1 Tbsp. oil and heat. Add the chicken and cook, stirring, until no longer pink. Remove chicken to the plate with the mushrooms. Add a splash more oil, if needed. Add the onion and red pepper, and cook, stirring, just until softened. Return the mushrooms and chicken to the pot. Add the broth and heat through. Add the fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce and lemongrass paste (if using) and simmer 5 minutes. Add cream and coconut milk, turn heat to low, then cover and simmer 2 minutes.
- In a small bowl, combine curry paste, Sambal Oelek, tomato paste and cornstarch and mix until incorporated. Stir into soup until combined and heat until soup simmers, thickens slightly and has a velvety appearance. Taste the soup and season with salt and pepper, as needed.
- To serve, spoon some hot rice into a bowl, then spoon hot soup over-top. Serve immediately garnished with cilantro, parsley or basil leaves and lime wedges to add a drizzle of fresh lime juice to the soup.
- Store any leftover rice and soup separately, as the rice will soak up all the soup broth if store together.
Notes
More Thai soup recipes to love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
A HIT! The first time I made it. I modified the ingredient list from Lemongrass paste (couldn’t find) to frozen chopped lemongrass. The second time, I doubled the recipe; used 4 day old leftover jasmine rice, and shredded a Costco rotisery chicken. Added water, 2 boullion cubes, 1.5x the red curry and chilli sauce and added 3 sliced thai chilies. Let it simmmer for 20 mins. Then added another leftover, remaining 25% of a can of coconut milk. Still not quite the right flavour so I shaved about a tablespoon of pressed coconut cream. Stirred through and informed the gamers and workers soups ready. I went to get a second bowl. It is GONE! My family inhaled it. My oldest said, “the base is real good,” my husband, “one of your best soups yet,” my youngest, “tastes like that soup we had from that restaurant.”
Thanks for sharing. Will become a Family Recipe
So glad to hear, Lori :) Thanks so much!
I made this soup with chicken and have made it substituting the chicken for shrimp. It was so good that I made it again for one of my clients. They are seafood lovers so I used Wild Argentine shrimp AND a bag of frozen assorted seafood which was blend of calamari and mussels, along with a package of frozen crab meat. The family is Brazilian and they like their food spicy! I’m pleased to say that they loved it! I’m going to make some tomorrow with chicken. I live in Canada – we had a two day snowstorm and it’s so cold. Your Wicked Thai Chicken Soup with Red Curry is so flavourful, incredibly warming and filling – it’s the PERFECT soup on a freezing cold winter day in Canada.
This is literally my favourite soup recipe! Thank you so much Jennifer for this delicious recipe with easy to follow instructions and tips.
(BTW, this may seem odd, but I often eat this soup after a bout of nausea. It goes down easy and makes me feel better. I’m not kidding – you’d think that good old fashioned chicken noodle soup would be a better choice. Maybe it’s the spices in the red curry paste? I don’t know? It DOES make my nausea settle down. Strange but true!
I’m so glad you are enjoying it, Carter and will try this soup when I’m feeling under the weather, for sure :) Thanks!
Loved the soup!! Just the right amount of spiciness for my taste.
So pleased to hear, Kathy. Thanks so much!