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!
I am such a sucker for Thai take-out, particularly for red curry and coconut soup. But ordering take-out has been getting a bit costly so this homemade coconut curry soup comes in very handy, especially during the cold, winter months. And the leftovers taste a million times better too.
Best of all, it’s so easy to make and it doesn’t require ingredients that are hard to find. And if you’re not a fan of shrimp, you can easily swap that out for chicken, pork or even tofu for a vegetarian option.
Either way, you’ll be sure to skip your usual Thai take-out and indulge in this budget-friendly version instead.
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.
I personally love Mae Ploy (contains shrimp paste). Thai Kitchen is also great, and more readily available at most grocery stores.
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 (12-ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk
- 3 cups vegetable stock
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
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.
Did you make this recipe?
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Wonderful! Great flavor and easy to make. Kudos!!
Sooooooo good! I made this exactly as directed. In winter I do “Soupy Sunday” where I serve homemade soup and crusty bread while we watch pro football or collegiate basketball. I gave this one a test drive tonight because I happened to have all the ingredients on hand. It’s a winner. Go Birds! Go SJU!
This is delicious. I love how simple and quick it is to make. I threw in about half a bag of frozen peas. I will be making this often this fall and winte.
I have not yet cooked it, but it looks amazing and I’m super excited to try it! I was just wondering at what point do I add the vegetable stock?
Please refer to step #4:
4. Whisk in curry paste until well combined, about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in coconut milk and vegetable stock, and cook, whisking constantly, until incorporated, about 1-2 minutes.
This was a very good base soup but it needed salt, pepper and a tablespoon or two of sugar to give it that extra flavor. I might thicken it with a little cornstarch next time, too. Overall quite good!
Yummy! I used a bit more coconut milk because it’s spicy! Loved it. Can you freeze it?
What a great idea! But unfortunately, without having tried this myself, I cannot answer with certainty. But if you get a chance to try it, please let me know how it turns out! 🙂
It freezes well! We use rotisserie chicken in place of shrimp if we’re going to double for freezing.
This is absolutely amazing!
Could this be made in the slow cooker?
What a great idea! But unfortunately, without having tried this myself, I cannot answer with certainty. But if you get a chance to try it, please let me know how it turns out! 🙂
I made this last night with a few tweaks and it was awesome!. I did not cook the shrimp first. I added butter and olive oil to the pot, sauteed the onion and pepper, then added garlic and ginger (I used extra garlic and extra ginger). I used chicken stock instead since I had a carton open in my refrigerator. I had cooked medium grain rice (arroz blanco) leftovers from the day before, added that in, simmered for 10 minutes. Added in 1 pound of raw jumbo shrimp which cooked in the soup in about 4 minutes, added lime juice and extra cilantro. I topped each bowl with extra cilantro and extra lime wedges. It was awesome!
That sounds really good, Heather! Thanks for sharing your feedback with us.
What I changed:
1. used chicken stock instead of veggie stock. Made it myself, did not use canned.
2. Added carrots to the onion/pepper mix.
3. Added frozen sea cocktail mix + cooked frozen cold water shrimp.
4. Added 2 cubes of Knorr Culdo De Marisco (it is usually used in Mexican fish/seafood soups)
How I cooked it:
1. Placed frozen chicken thighs in a cold water, boiled, made a stock. Removed chicken, got rid of the bones.
2. While I was making stock, placed butter in a pan, fried onion, bell pepper and carrots (all at the same time)
3. Added red curry paste, stirred
4. Added 1 can of coconut milk, chicken stock, chicken meat from the stock, seafood (all at the same time)
5. Turned heat to low, let it simmer for 10 min.
Added cooked rice, cilantro and lime juice in each bowl.
It is awesome!
Thanks so much for sharing your feedback with us!
I would give it 4 stars, but I needed to add about 2-3 T of brown sugar and 2-3 T of Sriracha sauce to balance the flavors. I also added a couple of teaspoons of fish sauce. I used an immersion blender before adding the shrimp. Very good after a few tweaks.
Thank you Pam!
This looks good. Could I get the recipe?
Of course! The recipe can be found at the bottom of the blog post but you can also click on this link here.
It was pretty good. This was my first time making this recipe and overall I liked how easy it was to make and the base is really good. I felt the flavour fell short, next time I’d add more red curry paste and less veg stock and more coconut milk to get a more creamy soup base.
I added mushrooms and canned baby corn, it was nice to have additional veggies in the soup.
Next time I will also substitute rice noodles instead of rice just to see which is best.
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!!!