I love soups – they’re so satisfying and filling and this curry style green Thai noodle soup is no exception. By choosing the veggies carefully to compliment the green curry, a pleasing appearance is achieved. So for instance, I wouldn’t add dark coloured items like large field mushrooms as they would spoil the soup’s delicate green colour. Try courgettes, green peppers, yellow peppers, cubed tofu, baby corn, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, carrots, brocolli, celery, onion, mange tout. You can also add some plant based vegan chicken if you wish – Plant Pioneers or Linda McCartney is very good.
This soup is best done in a large wok so that you can add all the veggies first, and then add the liquid. It makes around 5 large bowls of soup, which should satisfy most appetites – or 6 smaller ones.
I always start with the onions, garlic, ginger, and celery in the wok with a reasonable amount of oil. You can use either rapeseed oil or coconut oil or a mixture of the two.
Then it’s either a question of adding the veggies in as you go, or batch sauteeing them in the actifry. Both methods have their advantages, but the actifry method means you can do other things without worrying about burning it.
Make sure you have some vegan fish sauce – Thai Taste make it from seaweed – and also some palm sugar. These are important to create an authentic Thai style curry flavour – green curry paste has some if these but this boosts it. Lemon grass is also important – I always keep some whole frozen lemon grass stalks in the freezer.
I do use a commercially made green Thai curry paste, as it’s just too time consuming to make it yourself. Thai Taste are very good as are the Maesri brand which is perhaps the best. If you don’t find those in your region there will be a vegan locally available brand.
I add in a few stock cubes, a few other ingredients and of course coconut milk and the wholewheat noodles. You do need to add extra water to create the right amount of curry sauce as it’s a soup style dish. Wholemeal noodles aren’t too hard to find and are so much more nutritious than white. I find Blue Dragon vegan wholewheat noodles to be best. I’ll never understand why people use white noodles which have far less nutritional value.
It’s a fairly easy dish to make but this green Thai noodle soup is definitely a winner.
Curry style green Thai Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 1 large onion
- 2 sticks Celery
- 5 whole cloves of garlic
- 1.5 cm piece of ginger thumb sized
- 6 items from this: green peppers, courgette, carrot, small turnip, box white mushrooms, 10 waxy potatoes, green tomatoes, mange tout, baby corn, bamboo shoots, king oyster mushrooms
- 150 gm Thai Taste or Maesri green curry
- 3 whole low salt veg stock cubes
- 1 to 2 flat teasps low salt veg stock powder optional
- 3 whole finger chillies
- 1 whole Can of coconut milk
- 50 g creamed coconut optional
- 2 whole sticks of lemon grass get from any Thai shop - freeze what you don't use.
- 1 whole large pak choy or spinach, or Chinese leaves.
- 50 g coriander. 1 bunch
- 250 g wholewheat noodles Usually 5 nests. Use Blue Dragon – the Sainsbury’s ones aren’t as good.
- 2 teasps hemp butter or pumkin butter optional - but adds depth of flavour
- 1 Teaspoon onion powder Optional - but helps to thicken the sauce and adds flavour.
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder Optional - but helps to thicken the sauce and adds flavour.
- 1 tablespoon vegan fish sauce
- 4 teasps palm sugar This is a good level use less if you wish though. You can use brown sugar if you don't have palm sugar.
- 2 teasps soya sauce
- 1.8 litres boiling water
Instructions
- Slice the onion top to bottom
- peel and chop the ginger fairly finely
- peel and slice the garlic
- Sautee the onion and garlic (roughly sliced) plus the ginger (finely chopped)
- While they’re sautéing chop and add the celery.
- Slice and de-seed the chillies with a spoon end. Then chop finely and add to the wok.
- Then add in the green curry paste (150g) and continue to sauté on low heat for a few minutes to develop the flavours.
- Then add in 2 sticks of lemon grass cut in half and then into 3 lengthwise, plus baby corn and mange tout, and the coconut milk, , plus around a litre of the boiling water and bring to a gentle simmer
- Add in 3 or 4 low salt veg stock cubes – plus the stock powder.
- Meanwhile in the Actifry (or a separate wok) - cook the other veg – carrot, pepper, courgette, mushrooms, potatoes, green tomatoes, whatever you have to hand. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes depending on the vegetable – they don’t want to be overcooked – just getting them going.
- Sautee some peppers and tofu in an actifry mabye
- this is the tofu and peppers after cooking in the actifry air fryer.
- Add in the partly sauteed veg and top the water level up to fairly near the top – that's around 1.8 litres in total
- Bring to a gentle simmer.
- 5 minutes after that add in the wholewheat noodles – I use 5 nests for 6 medium bowls – but you can use 6 if you like more noodles. (use Blue Dragon not Sainsbury’s) –
- As soon as they’ve softened, give them a good jiggling to separate and distribute them or they will clump together and not cook properly – a chop stick is good for this!
- At this point you could also add in Pak Choy/spinach/Chinese leave and coriander – the green leaves work especially well for green curry!
- For green curry, adding 2 teaspoons pumpkin (or hemp) butter helps to help thicken the soup
- You can also 2 cubes of coconut cream (1 cube = 25g) for a deeper flavour.
- Cover and simmer for around 5 to 8 minutes until the noodles are soft – this is the tricky part. Important not to overcook the veg – but they want to be cooked. Also the noodles mustn’t be overcooked or they will break apart as you try to eat them. The best way is to take out a noodle after 5 mins and see if it’s cooked. Should be tender, but have a little bit of “bite”
