Thai Red Curry Noodle Soup
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An easy one pot dinner! Thai red curry noodles deliver on flavor and convenience. With tender chicken, rice noodles, cilantro, basil + lime!
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Why you’ll love this thai red curry noodle soup recipe
- Restaurant-quality. Now you can make your favorite takeout dish right at home for half the cost with better quality ingredients using your favorite protein.
- Packed with flavor. This noodle soup is simply downright fragrant, flavorful, cold weather comfort food, full of bold Thai flavors.
- One pot dinner. This no-fuss, one pot dinner means less dishes, less clean up, making it so effortless for busy weeknights, but also fancy enough for weekend company.
- Clean-out-the-fridge meal. And of course this makes for the best clean-out-the-fridge dinner, adding in any lingering veggies that need to be used up.
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).
How to make thai red curry noodle soup
- Sear the chicken. First, season the chicken with salt and pepper, searing until golden brown in a Dutch oven over medium heat.
- Cook the aromatics. Cook the garlic, bell pepper, and onion until tender, about 3-4 minutes.
- Add the red curry paste. Stir in the red curry paste, adjusting the amount of curry paste to your (or your family’s) spice levels.
- Deglaze the pan. Add the chicken broth and coconut milk, deglazing by scraping the prized caramelized brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pot (fond).
- Simmer. Simmer until slightly reduced and the flavors have blended, about 10 minutes. The longer it simmers, the more it reduces.
- Cook the noodles. Stir in the rice noodles (or desired noodles), fish sauce, and brown sugar. Rice noodles will cook quickly, about 5 minutes.
- Add the finishing touches. Add the green onions, cilantro, basil and lime juice, seasoning with salt and pepper, if needed.
- Serve. Serve warm, keeping the noodles and broth separately if preparing for leftovers.
what to serve with thai red curry noodle soup
Tools For This Recipe
Thai Red Curry Noodle Soup: Frequently Asked Questions
Absolutely! Shrimp or tofu are both great options.
I personally love Mae Ploy (contains shrimp paste). But Thai Kitchen is also great with mild heat and more readily available at most grocery stores.
Rice noodles are my go-to, coming in various sizes (wide, medium and thin). Rice vermicelli is used here, the thinnest rice noodles. But udon or soba noodles are also solid options.
Fish sauce has a strong, pungent “fishy” smell but when cooked, it brings in savory, salty, umami goodness.
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 1-2 days, separating the rice noodles from the broth.
Unfortunately freezing is not recommended as coconut milk tends to separate when frozen.
Thai Red Curry Noodle Soup
Video
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 tablespoons red curry paste
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 6 cups low sodium chicken broth
- 1 (13.5-ounce) can coconut milk
- 4 ounces rice noodles
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
- 3 green onions, thinly sliced
- ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
- ¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper, to taste. Add chicken to the stockpot and cook until golden, about 2-3 minutes; set aside.
- Add garlic, bell pepper and onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 3-4 minutes.
- Stir in red curry paste and ginger until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Stir in chicken broth and coconut milk, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.
- Stir in chicken. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced, about 10 minutes.
- Stir in rice noodles, fish sauce and brown sugar until noodles are tender, about 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat; stir in green onions, cilantro, basil and lime juice; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Serve immediately.
Equipment
Notes
- Use your favorite protein. This recipe will work well with chicken thighs, chicken breasts, shrimp or tofu.
- Full fat coconut milk will be more rich. Although lite coconut milk can certainly be used, full fat coconut milk will yield a much more rich and creamy broth.
- Fish sauce is a hero. Fish sauce is a key ingredient here, balancing out the flavors, and adding saltiness and umami without overpowering it. A little bit goes a long way.
- Mix it up. Swap out the red curry paste for green, add in more veggies (cabbage, zucchini, mushrooms or bok choy) or use your favorite noodles (vermicelli, udon or soba noodles).
- Divide and conquer. When storing leftovers, separate the noodles and broth. This will help the noodles retain its texture.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
damn delicious indeed! A winner with my family of six. I’ve made it 4 or five times already. Only thing I do different is on the chicken. I just throw it back in at the very end for a minute or two. I felt like ten more minutes (the first time I cooked it) made it a bit dry.
Hiya! I accidentally made it a bit too spicy. Is there a way to tone it down? Should I add more coconut milk?
the best soup I have ever tasted
This is such a great recipe! I’ve been a bit addicted to it lately, and have been trying different variations of it. This time, instead of chicken, I fried up some pressed and cubed tofu to add for the protein and ended up adding sliced mushrooms in with the red onion to cook and wilted some baby spinach into the broth with the noodles at the end for more veggies. No matter what little tweaks I make, it’s always amazing.
I can’t give this enough stars – insanely good! Just the right amount of heat and the flavors meld together so well. I will definitely be making this again and again. Outstanding!
Love the flavours but quite spicy hot for me. I had to add sour cream and more fresh lime juice to cut the heat down
I’ll make again and decrease the curry paste to 2 TBSP and add 1TBSP of Thai curry which has a sweetness to it
My lips are still on fire but really a great soup full of flavour
This soup I made this afternoon. Very easy to make and oh so “Damn Delicious”
I did not have cilantro so I threw in a bunch of parsley and dill. I look forward to making this again and again. I will probably try making this soup again using shrimp. Thanks for such a great recipe. Oh so good!!
Excellent recipe! I’ve made this twice in the last few weeks and no leftovers! Thanks for sharing!
I agree with all the comments. It was really good. Next time instead of adding the noodles to the broth, I will separate the noodles in serving bowls and add the broth. My noodles tasted a little starchy and mushy but it was still yummy.
Outstanding! I added califlower and introduced my non-spicy eating friends to it and they loved. We eat it regularly at the the home and it is so good. The recipe lives up to the website name.
Thank you for the recipe.
Any suggestions from anyone of what could be used in place of fish sauce?
Yes, There is vegan fish sauce you can buy!
Gosh, this soup looks so good! I’m going to give it a try but I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on what type of noodles, if any, could be substituted for the rice noodles. I’m specifically looking for something that is pretty low carb. Thank you all in advance. Chungah, your recipies are fabulous and I look forward to your emails and trying new things.
I cannot express how Damn Delicious this soup is!! It might be even better the next day. I added sliced mushrooms with the chicken.
Wow. I made this for dinner for my 8 year old and myself. I was expecting it to be good. But it was literally “d a m n Delicious!!!” I switched up a few things due to not having EVERYTHING on the ingredients list b/c it’s too expensive or impossible to find rn. So, I used paneer instead of chicken, vegetable stock, 1/16 cup of dried basil, and spinach. It was too good. My 8yo had 2nds and almost went back for 3rds until they realized dad had made brownies and they wanted one. It was a labor of love for sure with all the dicing and grating. I kept the spinach separate from the main soup pot and only added it to the hot bowls. It wilted perfectly without needing to be cooked. This wasn’t spicy at all, but it had that amazing flavor that would make one think it will be spicy from smelling it. We LOVED this and will be making it again soon. Thanks!
Loved this recipe!
This is the best soup ever!!! We had it 2 nights in a row, the second night I served it with naan bread to soak in the broth. I still had leftovers so I froze it and interested to see how it tastes after that.
This soup is delicious. It’s got a lot of flavor and tastes just like a curry. It’s also a fast soup to make. Don’t make it for date night. There is no attractive way to eat the noodles and soup together, but it is worth it .
This was the best noodle soup I have ever had!! I did add a shiitake mushrooms, pak choi and used prawns instead of chicken as my daughter is pescatarian but it was still super delicious. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
We’ve been making this soup since 2018 when we discovered it. It’s the BEST soup EVER!!
We use 3 breasts of chicken for it. We also use 2 onions instead of 1. We use a full bunch of green onions instead of 3. It is heaven for sure!
Wondering if anyone knows the calorie content per serving or the macros. It would be pretty difficult to figure out.
It’s about 345 calories per serving (if you get 6 servings out of the recipe). The macros are as follows:
20g fat
16g carbs
24g protein
I’ve made this recipe more times than I can count. Its perfect every single time. I do use a whole jar of Thai Kitchen curry paste and I add mushrooms. The taste of the soup broth is just incredible. Thank you for such a wonderful recipe!