Tom Kha Gai is a flavorful modern Thai soup with coconut milk, chicken, and galangal.
This recipe includes fresh from scratch ingredients, and not a ready-made tom kha curry paste. And still your tom kha gai will be ready within 30 minutes!
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The first time I came across Tom Kha Gai soup was in a Thai place in Europe. It all happened in a little Thai take away place.
I fell in love with the aroma of flavors intermingling with each other in a white broth. It was love at first sight!
What is a Tom Kha Gai Soup?
Tom Kha Gai (also spelled Tom Kha Kai) is a modern Thai soup which means literally translated boiled Thai ginger chicken
Coconut milk, Chicken, Thai Ginger (Galangal), Lemongrass, lime leaves, and Fish sauce make this dish so flavorful and amazing.
You will have a spoonful, and you will understand what I mean.
Tom Kha Gai is a popular soup in western countries and many variations exist. You also get tom kha curry pastes to make this soup.
Ingredients
These are some of the most prominent ingredients that make a good Tom Kha Gai.
Coconut Milk
Coconut milk is a common ingredient all over the world.
You can make your own delicious creamy coconut milk from scratch too with ripe coconuts (and learn here about soft and hard coconut flesh).
Fresh coconut milk will always taste better. However, coconut milk will do the trick too.
Galangal (Thai Ginger)
Thai Ginger, also known as Galangal, is the tricky ingredient to get for this soup.
Some Asian stores do stock up on this ingredient.
In Europe, I couldn't get it in the store, but my Thai takeaway place was kind enough to share some of theirs.
In case you can't find galangal ask your local Thai restaurant, they may turn out to be helpful and share some of their goodies.
Lemongrass
Lemongrass can be commonly found in many places all over the world. Ask for fresh lemongrass at your local Asian store or market.
Or you can keep a lemongrass plant too. I always find my plant super handy. You can use the lemongrass to make tea too.
For this recipe, we will use the white lemongrass stalks and not the green leaves.
Otherwise, once you get a bunch of fresh lemongrass, you can just freeze the lemongrass stalks for later use.
Kaffir Lime Leaves (aka Makroot Lime Leaves)
Kaffir lime leaves, are important to making this soup too.
If you can't get kaffir lime, just use regular lime leaves or kaffir lime rind or juice.
Kaffir lime leaves or lime fruits can be bought in a store in most Asian stores.
Other Ingredients
Other ingredients include mushroom, birds eye chili or regular red chili, fish sauce, fresh cilantro and tomato.
The tomatoes are a modern western addition. They don't add those in Thailand, but I loved them in my soup in Asian takeouts in Europe. They add an element of freshness to the meal.
📖 Recipe
Tom Kha Gai Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups Coconut Milk = 1 can
- 4 cups Chicken Broth
- 1 Lemongrass Stalk *see Notes
- 3 Kaffir Lime Leaves *see Notes
- 1 ½ inch Galangal aka Thai Ginger, *see Notes
- 2 Teaspoon Palm Sugar or normal sugar
- ½ Breast Chicken Boneless cut into bite-sized pieces
- 4-5 large Mushrooms sliced
- 1-3 Chili Peppers dried or fresh, Thai Chili preferably
- 2 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
- Juice of one Lime
- Salt to taste
- 1 medium Tomato diced, optional
- Cilantro Fresh aka fresh Coriander chopped
Instructions
- First, infuse the coconut milk by placing the milk into a pan with the broth. Simmer on a low-heat setting. High heat curdles the coconut milk, so keep it on a low heat at all time.2 cups Coconut Milk, 4 cups Chicken Broth
- In the meanwhile, prepare your rinsed lemongrass by removing the outer fibrous stalk layer and cutting the white, tender lemongrass stalk into thicker pieces.1 Lemongrass Stalk
- Lightly crush the lime leaves and peel and cut the Thai galangal into smaller strips.3 Kaffir Lime Leaves, 1 ½ inch Galangal
- Place the lemongrass, lime leaves, the cut galangal pieces with the palm sugar into the slow simmering coconut milk.2 Teaspoon Palm Sugar
- Let it simmer on low heat for 5 minutes approximately so that the milk takes up the aroma.
- Then add the cut chicken with sliced mushroom pieces to the simmering coconut milk.½ Breast Chicken Boneless, 4-5 large Mushrooms
- Let it simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes.
- Once the chicken and mushrooms are cooked, add the chili pieces, fish sauce, and lime juice and cook for another minute or two on a low-heat setting.1-3 Chili Peppers, 2 Tablespoon Fish Sauce, Juice of one Lime
- Taste with salt if necessary.Salt
- Just before serving, take out the whole spices and flavor givers. This includes the lemongrass pieces, the galangal pieces, and lime leaves.
- Stir in the fresh tomato pieces and the chopped cilantro.1 medium Tomato, Cilantro Fresh
- Serve hot!
Notes
- 2 cups coconut milk = 1 can
- Try to get Kaffir Lime leaves or Kaffir lime fruit rind. Otherwise, substitute with regular untreated (no pesticides) lime leaves or lime fruit.
- Use only the white bottom part of the lemongrass. The green leave is fibrous and not suited.
- If you can't get galangal just leave it out of the soup. Don't use regular ginger, the soup would turn out differently and it wouldn't suit the flavors.
- You can also get a set of fresh Thai ingredients which includes galangal, Thai chilies, kaffir limes and lemongrass.
Nutrition
Storing
Store leftovers in an airtight container in your fridge for up to 4 days. I like to add this Thai coconut milk soup to my weekly meal plan rotation.
You can freeze it in batches and gradually thaw and heat in your oven or over the stove top in a pan.
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I am lucky that I have a wonderful Asian market nearby that reliably carries all of the harder-to-find ingredients. I adore Tom Kha Gai soup, but I didn't realize that you could freeze it! Awesome!
Yum! Love all these flavors. So easy too! I actually haven't tried Tom Kha Gai yet. Definitely need to soon.
I can smell the aroma of this soup wandering thru our kitchen already!
I do like Thai food and your recipe sounds delicious. The herbs and spices are so flavourful, it must smell gorgeous when it is cooking. I love how fast it comes together too.
We love Tom ka gai - when we were in Thailand, my son and I went for a cooking session for a day and learnt to make many dishes including this one. Awesome!
I adore Thai kitchen! This coconuty chicken soup looks utterly delicious and moreish, Helena.
Boy, this sounds amazing! I love the Thai flavors and ready in 20 minutes??? Double bonus!!
pretty nice! I'm a big fan of Thai food and this is awesome!