Thai Coconut Curry Chicken Soup is everything you want for dinner in one cozy, hearty pot. Thick rice noodles, tender shredded chicken, and healthy spinach — all steeped in creamy coconut curry broth with just the right amount of heat. This satisfying Thai chicken soup is quick to prepare — and even quicker to disappear.
Thai food is always a happy meal in my house. The cuisine excites every tastebud with its beautiful balance of sweet, sour, spicy and salty flavors. I love being able to bring that excitement to the dinner table with a homemade recipe like this — a full meal in a bowl that's perfect for a cozy weeknight dinner.
Easy Enough For A Weeknight
This flavor-packed Thai chicken soup is quick and easy enough to throw together, even on a busy weeknight.
If you have leftover or rotisserie chicken on hand, you can get this delicious Thai dinner on the table in about thirty minutes. If you're starting with raw chicken, the whole recipe will take you about 45 minutes.
I hope you won't be discouraged by the long ingredient list — many of these ingredients are pantry staples that you can keep on hand. And although there's some slicing and dicing involved, once you start cooking, this recipe is lightning fast.
Ingredients
Here's what you'll need.
How to make Thai coconut curry chicken soup
This is an overview of the recipe with photos. For the full details, scroll down to the printable recipe card, below.
- Cook and Shred Chicken: Roast boneless chicken breasts (or thighs) in the oven and then shred or cut them into bite-sized pieces.
- Prepare The Rice Noodles: Soften the noodles in boiling water, per package directions. Then drain and set them aside.
- To Make the Soup, start by sautéing the shallots, curry paste, garlic and spices for just a minute or two, to soften the shallot and toast the spices.
- Add the chicken broth and coconut milk and simmer for 5 minutes.
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- Add the chicken, scallions, sugar and fish sauce and simmer for a couple of minutes.
- Finally, add the spinach, cilantro, chilies and noodles and simmer for a few minutes, until the spinach is wilted and everything in the pot is heated through.
- Done!
To Serve, ladle the soup into deep bowls, making sure to portion out plenty of chicken, noodles and spinach into each serving. Offer lime wedges on the side.
Variations and Substitutions
This is a flexible and adaptable recipe.
You can easily make this with rotisserie chicken or any leftover chicken for that matter.
Feel free to add a couple of handfuls of snow peas, shredded carrots, bokchoy, or any other vegetables that you like.
If you use carrots, snow peas or another crunchy vegetable, I recommend you blanch them first in boiling water - just until crisp-tender - before adding them to the soup.
If you're using spinach or kale or other leafy greens, there's no need to blanch them, as they will soften quickly in the heat of the broth.
Storage and Reheating
This Thai chicken soup makes a wonderful weeknight dinner and a delicious lunch or dinner the next day, too. Store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. Reheat it in the microwave or in a saucepan over medium heat. The great thing about rice noodles is that they don't disintegrate in soup the way pasta does, so leftovers are top notch.
Other Delicious Thai Recipes From Panning The Globe
If you make this Thai Coconut Curry Chicken Soup, I hope you come back to leave a star rating and a comment. I'd love to know what you think!
PrintRecipe
Thai Coconut Curry Chicken Soup Recipe
- Total Time: 45 mins
- Yield: 4-5 1x
- Diet: Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free
Description
A quick Thai curried chicken soup recipe - spicy, packed with flavor, and full of enough chicken, spinach and rice noodles to make a whole meal.
Adapted from a recipe in Cooking Light Magazine (Cooking Light recipes are no longer available online)
Ingredients
- 1 pound of boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 8 ounces fresh spinach leaves (6 cups)
- 6 ounces of wide rice noodles (I use A Taste of Thai)
- 1 tablespoon neutral-flavored vegetable oil such as canola
- ⅓ cup thinly sliced shallots (1 large shallot)
- 2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste (I use Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste)
- 1 heaping tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)
- 1 ½ teaspoons curry powder (I use Madras Curry Powder)
- ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
- ½ teaspoon ground coriander
- 6 cups low-salt chicken broth
- 1 (13.5-ounce) can light coconut milk
- 4 green onions, thinly sliced crosswise
- 2 tablespoons sugar (I used white but brown is ok too)
- 2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
- ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
- 4 small hot red chiles, seeded and chopped (or substitute ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes)
- 1 lime, cut into 8 wedges
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Instructions
- Cook and Shred Chicken: Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Spread chicken out in a roasting pan. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil and season with a little salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes. Shred or cut into bite sized pieces. If you prefer, you can poach the chicken.
- Cook the noodles: Boil the rice noodles until tender, per package directions. Drain and set aside.
- Start the Soup: Heat vegetable oil (1 tablespoon) over medium-high heat in a large heavy pot. Add shallots, curry paste (2 tablespoons), garlic (heaping tablespoon), curry powder (1 ½ teaspoons), turmeric (½ teaspoon) and coriander (½ teaspoon). Cook, stirring constantly, for a minute. Add chicken broth (6 cups) and bring to a boil. Add coconut milk and turn the heat to low. Simmer the soup for 5 minutes.
- Finish the soup: Add shredded chicken, green onions, sugar (2 tablespoons) and fish sauce (2 tablespoons). Simmer for 2 minutes. Add spinach, softened noodles, cilantro and chilies. Stir to combine and cook for a minute or so, to heat through.
- Serve: ladle soup into bowls and offer lime wedges on the side.
Notes
- To make this soup with leftover chicken, rotisserie chicken or poached chicken, skip step #1 and add 2½ cups shredded cooked chicken in step #4.
- Nutritional Information: We do our best to provide accurate nutritional values using an online nutrition calculator; however our nutrition information should be used only as an approximation.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 35 mins
- Category: Soup
- Method: simmer
- Cuisine: Thai
Gail
I made this soup last night and it was over the top flavorful! The only thing I changed was I only used 2 red chili's and the soup was more than spicy enough. Delicious Thai flavor! This will be in my soup rotation.
Lisa Goldfinger
So glad to hear you enjoyed! Thank you for circling back.
MAG
This was absolutely delicious! Highly recommend.
Anne Heather Campbell
This was delicious! I added broccoli and sliced mushrooms, and left out the chilies because one of us doesn't like spicy food. Took longer than indicated however. Definitely will make again.
Esme
Made this vegetarian last night with Tofu and Vegetable Broth. So good I couldn't believe it. Even better as leftovers!
Lisa
I'm so glad you adapted this to be vegetarian and enjoyed it! Thanks so much for coming back to leave a comment Esme!!
Rachel
Can you freeze this recipe?
Anne
Your website is one of my all time favorites! Thank you! I’ve never made anything you’ve posted that wasn’t delicious... but this soup is out of this world! It will be added to our list of “go-to” recipes!
Lisa
Thank you so much for your note Anne. It's great to get such positive feedback. Happy cooking! 🙂
Malik Muqtadir
Nice post. Thanks for your recipe
I ‘ll try to make it for my girl friend. Good job
Jhon
This soup is AMAZING. It was easy to make and super flavorful. I followed Lisa’a recipe exactly as posted. The only modification I made was to the chicken. Instead of roasting in the oven I cut the raw chicken into strips and seasoned them with salt, pepper, 1 TBS Olive Oil and 2 tsp of Madras Curry powder. I let it sit for 30 minutes then