EASY Lemongrass Soup (25 min)
A light but warming lemongrass soup, or coconut water chicken soup, that makes one feel warm and cozy in fall and winter. No sugar needed thanks to the natural sweetness of the young coconut. Plus, it's on the table in under 30 minutes, so perfect for a quick weeknight dinner!
Servings: 2 people
Calories: 68kcal
Equipment
- Pot with cover
Ingredients
- 2 cups chicken stock Can be substituted with vegetable or seafood stock. If using unseasoned homemade stock, add a bit more seasoning and tomatoes.
- 2 cups coconut water I’ve used both fresh and bottled but, if the latter, make sure it’s pure coconut water. If using fresh, try to get a young coconut.
- 1 shallot a large one, halved and peeled (Substiute: onion, preferably red)
- 2 lemongrass cut off root ends and bash with the back of a knife to release the fragrance. No need to slice into smaller pieces- it's easier to remove a big stalk from the soup pot!Pop the root ends into water- leave at least 1 inch on the root- to grow yourself a new lemongrass!
- 1 inch ginger thinly sliced
- 3 tomatoes (Cut into 6 pieces- 4 is too chunky) Don't add too many or the soup will be too sweet. Likewise, if you use cherry tomatoes instead, you will need to increase the amount of lime juice as cherry tomatoes are sweeter than regular ones.
- 1-2 tablespoons lime juice The acidity is necessary to lift the taste as well as to balance the sweetness of the coconut water. Substitute: lemon juice
- Fish sauce To taste. Can be substituted with salt or light soy sauce- the flavour will have slightly less depth but will still be tasty
Optional Ingredients To Add to the Soup
- Shrimp Can poach in the soup
- White Fish Fillet Can poach in the soup
- Noodles or Cooked Rice
Optional Toppings
- Tau kee (fried beancurd)
- fried dried prawns (hae bee)
- sliced red chilies
- spring onions
- coriander
Instructions
- Add the chicken stock, coconut water, lemongrass, ginger and shallot to a pot. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat.
- Once the mixture is boiling, reduce to medium heat and let the soup simmer. You should be able to smell the fragrance of the herbs after 5 minutes, if not increase the heat slightly. Note: if adding chicken thigh meat, abalone, fish fillet or shrimp to the soup, add it the soup now.
- Allow the soup to simmer for another 10-15 minutes to extract all the fragrance of the herbs. Make sure all the meat or seafood are cooked!
- Add the tomatoes and lime juice & allow the soup to return to the boil.
- Season with fish sauce, or salt, to taste.
- The above makes the basic soup base which can be drunk as it is.
- To bulk up the dish into a main, add either noodles or rice. Note: I like to add tang hoon (mung/ greenbean vermicelli) which is first soaked in hot water. Once the noodles have softened, they are then added to the soup. Give everything a stir for 1-2minutes then serve.Alternatively, you could add cooked rice to the soup once the soup has finished simmering to make “paofan” or submerged rice.
Notes
Serving: This serves 4 people as a side dish of soup or 2 people as a main (with noodles or rice)
Remove the lemongrass and ginger before serving as they’re not easy to bite/eat. The shallots can be eaten but the texture isn’t great after simmering (it’s mushy), so you may want to remove it from the soup as well.
Presentation: If you really want to impress, you can make this soup by double boiling chicken meat in coconut water inside a coconut shell. See recipe post for more details on this.
Note: the nutritional information is an estimate automatically calculated using the WPRM recipe maker and I am not responsible for its accuracy.
Nutrition
Calories: 68kcal | Carbohydrates: 12g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 0.5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.4g | Sodium: 167mg | Potassium: 671mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 771IU | Vitamin C: 17mg | Calcium: 47mg | Iron: 1mg