Tom Yum Goong Recipe | Thai Lemongrass Soup with Shrimp
Tom Yum Goong is a light and tasty Thai style hot and sour soup with shrimp or prawn. The soup is infused with many Thai herbs and ready in just 30 minutes! Serve this with steamed jasmine rice and there you have one delicious meal!
Servings: 2 servings
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups water
- 2 lemongrass stalks
- 10 kaffir lime leaves
- 1 thumb-sized chunk galangal
- 4 shallots
- 5 Thai chilies
- 1 Roma tomato
- 7 ounces straw mushrooms
- 5 culantro leaves
- 15 shrimp
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- ½ tablespoon sugar
- 3 ½ tablespoons freshly-squeezed lime juice
- ½ tablespoon Thai chili paste (nam prik pao)
Instructions
- Boil 2 ½ cups of water in a pot over medium heat.
- While waiting for the water to boil, take the stalks of lemongrass, chop the roots off and discard along with the outermost leaf of each stalk. Then, cut every stalk into 1-inch strips.
- Hand-tear the kaffir lime leaves.
- Thinly slice the galangal root.
- Peel the shallots and cut them in half.
- Gently pound the lemongrass, galangal, shallots in a mortar and add them to the pot and boil for about 10 minutes (This will allow the herbs to release fragrance and infuse the base of your soup).
- Pound the chilies in a mortar or smash them on the cutting board with the back of your knife.
- Cut the tomato into wedges and the mushrooms in half. Roughly chop the culantro.
- Add the tomato wedges to the pot.
- Prepare your shrimp. Peel the shell, and remove the head but keep the tail on. Then, devein and rinse.
- Once the water is boiling, add the mushrooms and shrimp to the pot and cook for 2-3 minutes or so.
- Add the fish sauce, sugar, and Thai chili oil.
- Taste test the tom yum and adjust the flavor as needed before adding the kaffir lime leaves and turning off the heat.
- Add the lime juice and taste test again and adjust as needed.
- Transfer the soup to a serving bowl, sprinkle with the chopped culantro.
Notes
- Tom yum is best enjoyed freshly made. You can reheat the soup but it tends to become saltier and the shrimp will be overcooked.
- We normally enjoy this dish with rice. Though you can have it on its own if you want. ;)