spicy vegan coconut laksa.
A spicy, creamy, coconut flavored soup with thin rice noodles and tofu puffs that comes together in under 30 minutes.
Makes: 4 servings Prep time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 30 minutes jump to recipe.
I was craving pho. Kind of. I was craving a creamy, spicy rice noodle soup, with crunchy cilantro on top and a reason to use up my tofu puffs. This is not really pho.
Pho is Vietnamese and involves a clear, delicate beef broth, thin rice noodles, and shaved beef that cooks in the steaming soup. It’s topped with crunchy, fresh basil, cilantro, and lime.
This recipe is technically more of a laksa than a pho or curry; it felt disingenuous to simply call it soup. Laksa is a spicy coconut soup enjoyed in Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia) and generally involves a flavorful soup base, rice noodles, and a protein. This can be made many different ways, often involving thick noodles and chicken or prawns. The Spruce Eats has a pretty digestible list if you’re curious for more info.
The difference between laksa, pho, and curry are in the ingredients. Laksa is generally made with shrimp paste, often hidden within a spicy sauce of galangal, lemongrass, and chiles. Though on paper laksa and pho sound very similar, the visuals are not at all the same. Coconut laksa more resembles curry, but is usually served with noodles instead of rice, and has a consistency of soup for the ingredients to swim in.
The reason I really struggled to title this as a laksa is because I didn’t use laksa paste. Maybe if I had set out to make laksa instead of pho, that would have happened, but instead I snuck in a totally unrelated paste, gochujang. A Korean product, gochujang is a red pepper paste that adds a very noticeable heat to dishes.
You won’t find gochujang in other laksa recipes because …. it’s Korean .… and laksa is not.
Make of that what you wish — but guessing you have gochujang on hand right now, which makes this dish a tiny bit easier to make (and if you don’t have gochujang on hand, you should. At least a little tube). If it helps, you can simply call this “spicy coconut noodle soup” and call it a day. Personally, I think it’s nice to give credit to the cuisine it’s based on, but I can see how negating that is better too.
So what does it taste like?
So now that you have a million facts about Asian soups that you didn’t ask for, you’d like to know more about this soup. Right. Like traditional laksa, this does include lemongrass, ginger (a close cousin to galangal), tofu puffs, coconut, and noodles. It’s spicy, initially, thanks to the gochujang; but as the broth slides past your tongue, it changes, becoming sweeter, lighter, and saltier. The spice is joined by hints of lime, bright ginger, and the distinct, sweet nuttiness of coconut. And of course, umami. The umami you taste is from the soy sauce, which does the heavy lifting usually done by fish sauce in this curry. Mixed with garlic and lime, the soy sauce deepens the flavor.
Add-ons
Like many soups, you can throw things into the broth to make this your own (or clean out the fridge). You can also top this with meat or fish instead of tofu if you’re not vegan (and not into tofu). Here are some suggestions:
chickpeas, drained
regular firm tofu, pressed, and cut into cubes
shrimp, seared, then added last
chicken, seared, then boiled with the broth
water chestnuts, baby corn
bean sprouts, mint, or peanuts, for topping
flaky white fish, like cod, poached with the broth
spicy vegan coconut laksa ingredients
scallions: Chop up the white part of the scallion finely to use in the broth, then use the flavorful green part to top the soup. If you don’t have scallion on hand, any onion will do, specifically shallot or yellow.
ginger: Mince this well. It’s easy to chop ginger a bit and call it a day, but the taste never dulls, so biting into a big chunk of ginger in your soup will be alarming. Chop it super finely and press it into a chunky paste with your knife. I don’t recommend grating it, because you’ll want to sauté it first. Mincing should do the trick without the unwanted spicy surprises.
garlic: Like the ginger, mince the garlic. You don’t need to be too strict about the amount, just use a few large cloves.
lemongrass: The best way to use lemongrass (in my opinion) is to buy the little container of peeled lemongrass (located with the fresh herbs in the produce section), trim it, and smash it. This, like garlic, unleashes the flavor so that the delicate aroma comes through. Keep them otherwise whole so you can fish them out of the soup later.
chilis: I recommend using Thai bird chilies if you have them, they match the dish’s spice and flavors well. If you don’t have these tiny red chilies, you can use a Fresno chile or 2 serrano chilies. You could even use jalapeno or bell pepper, though the taste will start to change.
gochujang: Most grocery stores I shop at have gochujang these days, but if yours doesn’t, most Asian grocery stores will have it. It’s usually in small to extra large containers near the curry pastes or Korean products. It’s bright red and quite spicy, similar to chili crisp or even sriracha. If you want a milder soup, I’d recommend omitting the chilies before omitting any gochujang; if you really can’t stand spice, just use a small spoonful to give the soup a little bit of color and flavor.
coconut milk: I do have a favorite brand and it’s Chaokoh. Usually this brown can is found in Asian markets and is way thicker and creamier than the usual suspects found commercially. It’s not watery and separated, so it incorporates and creates a much thicker soup or curry. If you can’t get this brand, no worries; I used the Thai Kitchen brand for this recipe just fine. Shake before opening, and don’t try using the boxed coconut milk that’s meant for drinking.
vegetable broth: You can use stock or broth here, or a mixture of broth and water to be more budget-conscious. I usually have success with half broth, half water, but if you can swing it, I’d recommend using 75% broth (So out of 8 cups, maybe 6 should be broth). You can use chicken broth instead if you aren’t strictly vegan.
soy sauce: If you aren’t vegan, you could use fish sauce here, but it’s pretty likely that soy sauce is the one you have on hand, anyway. It’s basically used for salt flavoring, but with more umami.
lime: Really important to have a lime or two on hand to squeeze in when the soup gets too spicy for your liking. The acid calms the heat a bit while lifting the other flavors of the dish. Serve this with lime for anyone who is struggling with the heat level to add while they eat.
palm sugar: I didn’t originally write this into the recipe, but I couldn’t get it out of my head and decided to give it a try. Yep, as suspected, it made this a lot more interesting. If you don’t have palm sugar, I suggest skipping this altogether. Palm sugar is more buttery than sugary-sweet, so it adds a smooth, subtle sweetness. White sugar wouldn’t do the same thing, so I suggest skipping this if you don’t have palm sugar on hand. To find palm sugar, go to an Asian grocery and look near the Thai curries. The sugar will be sold in disks or sheets and will be a tannish-gold color.
cilantro: For topping. Obviously, if you hate cilantro, skip this and try Thai basil or mint instead.
rice vermicelli: I have seen this type of noodle in the Asian section of big grocery stores, but if you can’t find it there, it will be very easy to find this in Asian-specific grocery stores. Rice noodles are translucent and the kind in this recipe are sold dry, to be “cooked” in warm water. They are very thin and fragile, needing just a bowl of hot water to soften them before being covered in broth. You can, of course, use any noodle, but will need to cook to package directions before using in the soup. For most noodles, this will mean boiling.
soy puffs: This is optional, but a really good way to use tofu puffs if you happen to have them. These are light, fluffy, airy little bites of tofu that have absolutely no taste. Like regular tofu, you have to dunk them in a sauce to give them flavor. This thick, creamy sauce or anything curry-like is ideal, since they absorb flavor well and do not fall apart at all. Regular tofu also works in this dish, if you can’t find tofu puffs. To find the puffs, look near the tofu in Asian grocery stores. They’ll be packaged like the above photo.
