A delicious traditional Tom Yum soup paste recipe you can use as a base for soups, or stir into fried rice and stir-fried noodles
What is Tom Yum paste?
Classic Tom Yum soup is made by simmering ingredients such as lemongrass, galangal, shrimp, and makrut lime leaves. Its sweet-savory balance comes mainly from fish sauce and palm sugar.
Tom Yum paste, sold in stores as Tom Yum Paste, packs all the flavors you love in Tom Yum Talay soup into a wonderfully convenient concentrated base. Use it to make a Thai Tom Yum soup in no time, or add a spicy kick to your Asian hot pot broth.
It is widely used as a soup base, but it also works beautifully in stir-fries, marinades, sauces, and many other preparations.
To make Tom Yum soup, simply add 1 tablespoon of the paste to about 500 ml of boiling water or chicken broth. Then add your favorite Tom Yum soup ingredients, such as shrimp, mushrooms, fresh cilantro, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Add 1/2 teaspoon of shrimp paste as well, and you won’t even need whole shrimp to get a deep, full flavor!
How to store Tom Yum paste
Tom Yum paste will keep in the fridge for 1 week, or in the freezer for 6 months. Tip: freeze it in ice cube trays so you can easily portion out small amounts.
Ingredients
- 12 g dried red chilies
- 30 g lemongrass chopped
- 30 g galangal chopped
- 2 leaves makrut lime stems removed
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 50 g shallots chopped
- 5 tablespoons fish sauce
- 3 tablespoons palm sugar
- 10 tablespoons neutral oil
- 5 tablespoons tamarind paste
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Soak the dried chilies
- Soak the dried red chilies in warm water until softened, about 30 minutes.12 g dried red chilies
Mortar and pestle method
- Using a stone mortar and pestle, pound the dry ingredients first: lemongrass, salt, galangal, and makrut lime leaves. Pound until a fine paste forms.30 g lemongrass, 1 teaspoon salt, 30 g galangal, 2 leaves makrut lime
- Add the chilies, garlic, and shallots, then pound into a paste.4 cloves garlic, 50 g shallots
- To finish, add the fish sauce, palm sugar, and tamarind paste. Mix until the palm sugar has dissolved.5 tablespoons fish sauce, 3 tablespoons palm sugar, 5 tablespoons tamarind paste
- Heat a nonstick skillet, wok, or pot over medium-low heat and add the oil. Once the oil is hot, add the pounded mixture and fry until fragrant, about 2 minutes.10 tablespoons neutral oil
Food processor method
- Transfer all the herbs and spices to a food processor. Blend until a bright red paste forms.
- Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the paste and fry until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
Notes
Nutrition
This recipe was contributed by Praew from the English-language blog “Hungry in Thailand”, which is packed with traditional Thai recipes!
