Hearty, satisfying, and full of warmth, this cozy Thai Tom Kha Gai is a gorgeous Thai soup that’s the ultimate in Southeast Asian comfort food. Tender chunks of chicken and mouth-watering mushrooms simmer in a creamy, tangy broth that’s positively bursting with flavor!
Tom Kha Gai is a traditional Thai soup made with coconut milk, fresh galangal, mushrooms, chicken, lemongrass, ginger, and kaffir lime leaves. It’s creamy, tangy, and has a slight kick to it for a belly-warming cozy soup that covers all the flavor bases.
Thai food is my ultimate comfort food, and making it at home is one of my most coveted rituals.
I love the way my home smells while I’m cooking, and enjoy the combination of creamy, tangy, sweet flavors. I also love making Thai for friends and family, as it’s always an impressive crowd-pleaser!
Depending on where you live, it can be challenging to find galangal, kaffir lime leaves, and lemongrass.
In order to make this yummy soup accessible to all, I use ingredients anyone can find at any grocery store. The flavor isn’t a perfect replica of the Tom Kha you’ll find at an authentic Thai restaurant, but it comes close.
In this sense, this is not an authentic recipe for Tom Kha Gai, as it replaces galangal with ginger and kaffir lime leaves with lime juice and lime zest.
Ingredients for Thai Tom Kha Gai Soup:
Translated, tom kha gai means ‘chicken galangal soup’. Galangal root is a Southeast Asian root you might struggle to find at the grocery store!
To help you out, I’ve switched this (and some of the other more exotic traditional ingredients!) out for easier-to-find substitutes that won’t have you sacrificing taste.
Avocado Oil: To sauté the veggies. The neutral flavor won’t overpower delicate ingredients like lemongrass. Light olive oil or grapeseed oil are decent substitutes.
Yellow Onion: Breaks down beautifully when you’re simmering to release a gorgeous sweetness into our Thai chicken soup.
Garlic: Minced and sautéed, a good dose of garlic improves practically any dish.
Ginger Root: If you can find galangal, switch it for ginger! You can prepare it in the same way.
Mushrooms: I use button mushrooms, quartered, for that perfectly sized bite. Feel free to experiment with other varieties – just chop them into ½ – 1 inch pieces so they cook through!
Chicken Broth: The base of our Thai Tom Kha Gai. Make your own or use any store-bought chicken stock.
Full Fat Coconut Milk: This is where the delicious creamy richness of most Thai soups and curries comes from.
Chicken: I use chicken breasts as it’s leaner, boneless chicken thighs work just as well!
Fresh Lemongrass: Beautifully fresh and aromatic, the taste and smell of lemongrass is a trademark of Thai food. Lemongrass paste does the job if you can’t find the herb itself.
Sweetener of Choice: Traditional Tom Kha Gai uses cane sugar or brown sugar, but I often replace it with pure maple syrup, coconut sugar, or a zero calorie sweetener like Truvia.
Monk fruit sweetener works too! The sweetener brings a wonderfully sweet undertone that levels up the whole experience.
Fish Sauce: The secret weapon of Southeast Asian cuisine. Adds saltiness, depth, and a hefty helping of umami flavor.
Lime Zest and Fresh Lime Juice: If you can find them. Substitute your lime zest and juice for 10 kaffir lime leaves for an authentic touch.
Thai Red Curry Paste: While not a typical Tom Kha Gai ingredient, I find red curry paste deepens the flavor, warmth, and tantalizing red color of our soup.
Sea Salt: To taste.
Recipe Customizations:
- Double up and use two cans of coconut milk if you want your Thai chicken soup even creamier! Coconut cream is a great option here too.
- Replace the lime zest and juice with 10 kaffir lime leaves.
- Use oyster mushrooms or shiitake mushrooms instead of baby bella mushrooms.
- Add another can of coconut milk for even creamier soup.
- If you can find galangal, replace the ginger with it (or use it in addition to ginger if you love ginger)
- Love a bit of spice? Throw in some red chili sauce, red thai chilies, or a chopped jalapeno pepper to up the ante.
- Serve over rice noodles or steamed jasmine rice for a filling dish!
Tips To Make The Perfect Thai Tom Kha Gai
- If the soup is still a little watery for your liking after simmering, leave it to cook uncovered for a few minutes until it thickens up. If it goes too far the other way and gets too thick, simply add in some water or coconut milk!
- A Dutch oven is ideal for making this Thai chicken soup, but any large lidded pot will do.
What Does It Taste Like?
This dish has so many flavors to contend with, and they all work together in perfect balance.
You have sweetness, heat from the curry paste, freshness from the lemongrass, and a wonderfully savory medley of garlic, ginger, and fish sauce.
It’s beautifully creamy and tastes indulgent while still maintaining a beautiful lightness!
How to Make Thai Tom Kha Gai:
Heat your avocado oil in a large pot or Dutch oven, then sauté the onion over medium heat for 5 to 8 minutes until the edges begin to brown.
Toss in the minced garlic and mushrooms, and cook for another 3 minutes until the mushrooms start to sweat.
Next, simply stir in everything else, cover your pot, and bring it to a full boil.
Give it another really good stir, reduce the heat to a simmer, and let it cook with the lid on for 20 minutes.
Remove and discard the lemongrass, check the chicken is cooked all the way through, then serve!
Garnish with some fresh cilantro, green onions, lime wedges to squeeze over, and some fresh red chilli if you fancy.
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Rich, creamy, and packed with warmth, this soup is an instant classic that I come back to again and again. Let me know in the comments if you love it as much as I do!
Enjoy my Thai Tom Kha Gai? Check out these other fantastic Thai recipes!
More Thai Recipes:
- Coconut Curry Vegetable Soup
- 30-Minute Thai Curry Noodles
- Thai Coconut Chicken Soup
- Pressure Cooker Green Curry
- Green Curry Thai Noodle Soup
- Sweet Potato Coconut Curry Soup
Thai Tom Kha Gai Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp avocado oil
- 1 small yellow onion
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 8 ounces mushrooms chopped
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 1 (15-oz) can full-fat coconut milk
- 1 large chicken breast chopped
- 1 (1-inch) nub ginger peeled and grated*
- 2 stalks lemongrass peeled and chopped into 2-inch pieces **
- 2 Tbsp pure maple syrup or sugar
- 2 Tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tsp lime zest***
- 3 Tbsp lime juice***
- 2 Tbsp red curry paste
- sea salt to taste
Instructions
- Heat the avocado oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until the edges begin to brown, about 5 to 8 minutes.
- Add the garlic and mushrooms and continue sauteing another 3 minutes, until mushrooms begin to sweat.
- Stir in the remaining ingredients, stir well, cover the pot, and bring to a full boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook 20 minutes, or until the soup is very aromatic and the chicken is cooked through.
- Remove and discard the lemongrass before serving.
- Serve soup in big bowls with lime wedges and cilantro.
Notes
Nutrition
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Absolutely delicious! Thanks so much for sharing. Will be making this for years to come. I added some more vegetables (baby corn, carrots and mushrooms), red Thai chilli’s, thin rice noodles, two cans of coconut milk as you suggested in your notes. I left out the fish sauce just because we don’t eat fish sauce and used olive oil and brown sugar instead of avocado oil and sweeter as it’s what we had on hand. Thank you once again!
My pleasure! I’m so thrilled to hear you enjoy the soup. All of your additions sound amazing! I’ll have to try the same changes the next time I make the soup. Thanks so much for sharing your experience xoxo
kaffir lime leaves…please
Hi Jay! I mention in the post very clearly in multiple places that if you have access to kaffir lime leaves to use them. Most grocery stores in the U.S. do not carry them and not everyone has access to specialty markets to purchase them.
hi
just after some clarification on the nutritional values. Yield is 6 but then it says “serving one of 1 of 4”, what does that mean?
It’s a meal for 4 people, not 6?
Do you have the fibre count too please? Net carbs!
Thanks for the recipe by the way
Would you be able to can this soup for long term storage (my daughter goes to college almost 1800 miles away and has some allergies so I make meals and ship to her and she would love this soup)
Hi Dawn! I must confess, I have no experience with canning and shipping soup, so I don’t know how it would work out. I wish I had a better answer for you! If you’ve had success in the past with canning soups and shipping them to her, I assume this soup would be no different. Best of luck! xoxo
What is the serving size? 1 cup?
Hi Kristen!
1 serving will be 1/6th of the recipe, which should come out to just under 2 cups per serving 🙂 Hope you love the soup! xoxo
Just sat down to have a bowl of this soup- I have to say I was a bit skeptical, having never made any Thai dish before( I do have lots of experience eating it though ) It is wonderful! the only thing I did different was added a bit of heavy cream thicken it. Definitely will be making again! Thank you!
I’m so happy you like it, Eleanor! The addition of heavy cream sounds delightful! xoxo
yum yum easy to make packed full of flavour
So happy you like it, Deb!
Made this a few days ago; it was awesome! The red curry paste I used from our local Asian market was … spicy, especially on leftover day. Speaking of leftovers, I added some more mushrooms, cuz I guess we sought them out on day one, and some vermicelli noodles to give it some more substance for dinner. As for the chicken, I must have cut the pieces too small, as they were dried out in less than 15 minutes. Next time, and there will be!, larger, more consistent cutting up of the chicken and a check after 10 minutes. All in all, DELICIOUS!
I’m so happy you enjoy the soup, Dennis! Thanks so much for letting me know! Bummer about the chicken…hopefully larger pieces will help. Sometimes I cheat and use store-bought rotisserie chicken to ensure it stays nice and tender. Thanks so much for the sweet note! 😀 xo
This is SO good!
My changes: I added two slices of jalapenos to give it just a little heat. I also added 1 cup of snow peas and 1 cup of carrots because I wanted more vegies and a more colorful dish. (I have no idea if this kicks it out of paleo/keto because I am not a follower of those protocols)
I make my own chicken stock (I use a partially eaten rotisserie chicken cooked 3 – 4 hours in a crockpot in vegetable broth. Then I remove the bones/skin. I remove a bit of the fat by transferring to another container and then measuring it out — you can see the fat sticking to the surface of the containers)
All of that sounds so fantastic, Laura! I especially love the heat from the jalapeno. Thanks so much for your feedback!! xoxo 😀