Easy Thai Shrimp Soup
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Skip the take-out and try making this at home – it’s unbelievably easy and 10000x tastier and healthier!
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reasons to make easy thai shrimp soup
- Takeout favorite
- Budget-friendly
- Uses easy-to-find ingredients
- Cold weather comfort food
- Leftovers taste even better
- Super flexible recipe (and can be made vegetarian friendly)
what is red curry paste and where can i find it
Commonly used in Thai dishes, red curry paste is made from a blend of red chili pepper, garlic, lemongrass, Thai ginger and various spices.
Red curry paste is typically used for stir-fry, soups or mixed with coconut milk for curry. It is readily available in most grocery store chains, particularly the Thai Kitchen brand, and online, with some brands containing shellfish (shrimp paste).
tips and tricks for success
- Know your shrimp size. Shrimp size is calculated on number of shrimp per pound. The smaller the number, the larger your shrimp. There are about 40-50 medium shrimp per pound.
- Buy frozen shrimp. For superior quality and freshness, using frozen shrimp is ideal (but avoid the bags with freezer burn), opting for a quick thaw under cold running water.
- Use your favorite protein. This recipe will work well with chicken thighs, chicken breasts, shrimp or tofu.
- Use full fat coconut milk. Although lite coconut milk can certainly be used, full fat coconut milk will yield a much more rich and creamy broth.
- Mix it up. Swap the red curry paste for green, add in more veggies (cabbage, zucchini, mushrooms or bok choy) or use rice noodles in place of rice.
- Stir in more stock with leftovers. When reheating leftovers, stir in more stock as needed as the rice will continue to soak up the broth.
what to serve with thai shrimp soup
Easy Thai Shrimp Soup: Frequently Asked Questions
You can thaw frozen shrimp overnight, transferring it from the freezer to the fridge the day before. For a quick thaw, you can run them under cold water until completely thawed, about 5-10 minutes. Pat them dry as thoroughly as possible to remove any excess moisture.
Yes! Chicken is a great swap for the shrimp, and you can sub chicken stock for the vegetable stock as well.
We personally love Mae Ploy (contains shrimp paste). Thai Kitchen is also great with mild heat, and more readily available at most grocery stores.
Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 1-2 days.
We do not recommend freezing this as coconut milk tends to separate when frozen.
Easy Thai Shrimp Soup
Ingredients
- 1 cup basmati rice
- 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 2 tablespoons red curry paste
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 (13.5-ounce) can coconut milk
- 3 cups vegetable stock
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Equipment
Instructions
- In a large saucepan of 1 1 /2 cups water, cook rice according to package instructions; set aside.
- Season shrimp with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Melt butter in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add shrimp, and cook, stirring occasionally, until pink, about 2-3 minutes; set aside.
- Add onion and bell pepper to the Dutch oven. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 3-4 minutes.
- Stir in red curry paste, garlic and ginger until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
- Stir in coconut milk and vegetable stock; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until slightly thickened, about 8-10 minutes.
- Stir in rice, shrimp, lime juice and cilantro.
- Serve immediately.
Video
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
I made this tonight and OMG it is sooooo good. Thank you for sharing this amazing dish.
Incredibly delicious and easy to make. Flavor was better than some we’ve eaten @ restaurants. I think it would be a marvelous soup with cubed chicken. I followed the recipe exactly as given but in the future I would not precook shrimp in order to keep it from getting rubbery. Adding it (or chicken) at same time you add rice and stock should be enough cooking time. Again, MARVELOUS!
So good!!! Loved it! I added some jalapeño and it was amazing! Thank you for such a good recipe.
That Thai shrimp soup was damn delicious, added zucchini and mushrooms and used green curry paste for a little extra spice, thumbs up on that easy and quick soup
Bland. So very bland. Waste of shrimp.
Sorry it didn’t turn out!
This is my favorite soup! Just love the flavor, and it’s super simple to make.
We cooked this tonight and it was delicious! Very filling! I might add a tad more curry next time as I like a little more spice, but the flavors as written were delicious and my house smells amazing.
Loved this! We cut the curry in half and next time may cut it to 1/4 of the suggested amount. We don’t do grains so I steamed some sweet potatoes to have on the side. This was so flavorful and deeeelish!!!
Love this recipe and so do my friends.
I made this Tonite and it was fantastic!!! I tweaked it a little because I wanted to use my instapot because it’s easy. Also I used chicken since that’s what I had. Worked great in the instapot!! I added half the milk the garlic, chicken and broth , and curry to the instapot and pressure cooked it. I used my stovetop to quickly saute the onions and bell pepper with toasted sesame oil. When the insta pot was done I did a quick release, shredded the chicken and added the remaining ingredients (peppers, onions, remaining coconut milk, cilantro, ginger, lime juice and salt). My family loved it!! Thank you so much!
We love that!
I Love this soup! Unfortunately, I live smack in the middle of the Midwest where the only seafood you can get is frozen. I swap out chicken for the shrimp and chicken stock for the vegetable stock. So good (and simple)!
My husband and I loved this soup! He said it was one of the best dishes I had ever made! I used half the curry, my husband has been very ill so I didn’t want to make it too spicy.
Damn Delicious! Have made this twice now, a big hit!
I really enjoy your recipes! If I wanted to double this recipe what adjustments would you recommend or would you just double everything? Thank you.
Yes, it would be best to double everything. 🙂
This really does look Damn Delicious!! I like how the shrimp can be swapped out for tofu, chicken, or pork. Great work on the video’s and food photo’s. Once I started taking experimental photos of recipes I thought turned out well to share on social media I very QUICKLY realized how much work goes into making the food look… well, delicious!! Will have to get your cookbook soon.
My boyfriend and I made this soup and it is so delicious.
Awesome!
I made this soup tonight and it was delicious! It was easy to make and will be my go to soup now!
I just made this (with a few modifications) and OMG it was amazing!
Modifications:
Added some more kosher salt and more ground pepper as found it a bit too bland initially.
Increased the amount of red curry paste to 3 tablespoons (I prefer a smidge more spice)
Added sliced fresh mushrooms
Increased the coconut milk from 1 can to 2.
Finally, the limes I purchased were very small so I used juice from 2 small ones and that also brought flavour out even more.
Very easy to make and ready in under an hour!
Thank you for your feedback, Leasa!
I made this last night and I was so looking forward to it, but it was so flat. I made the recipe exactly as recipe was written. I had the expectation that the recipe would be full of flavor. I don’t know if it was because the recipe called for vegetable stock or what. I’m really bummed.
Hi Pamela,
I made it for first time tonight and as I was cooking and tasting it, realized needed a little “more”….
Modifications I made:
added more kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
3 tblsp of red curry paste instead of 2
more garlic
2 cans of coconut milk instead of 1
the recipient called for 3 cups of vegetable stock…I bought one of the cartons at grocery store which is actually 1 litre which would be equivalent to about 4 cups and I was worried it would be too watery but with everything else I added, you wouldn’t know
Some fresh sliced mushrooms
I had small limes so used 2 small limes and definitely gave it more zing
Honestly, in my opinion, these little additions just took it from pretty good to WOW!
Wow just made this soup. Easy and absolutely delicious. Didn’t have red curry paste so used yellow still very tasting and nice bite to it. So happy . Thank you. Lunch for the week.
Awesome! Thanks, Cathy!