Here’s how you can easily make vegan tom yum soup at home! This delicious Thai soup recipe is bursting with flavors! Give it a try!
I’m so happy I discovered the wonderful Thai cuisine! I had no idea what amazing flavors I was missing until I made the vegan pad thai and now this delicious vegan tom yum soup.
Tom Yum or Tom Yam is a traditional Thai recipe also known as hot and sour soup. It’s usually cooked with shrimps and the broth is made with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lime juice, fish sauce, and crushed chili peppers.
There are so many different types of tom yum recipes, some with clear broth, others with pork, coconut milk, seafood, etc. The most popular version remains tom yum with prawns (shrimps). Even though this is not a vegan recipe, it can be easily veganized. I used tofu and mushrooms to replace meat and the rest of the ingredients are pretty much the same as in the traditional recipe.
Before trying to make my own vegan version of tom yum soup, I searched the web for the best tom yum recipes and analyzed a bunch of them. Some recipes ask for so many peppers, 10 or more, while others lack some ingredients which I consider to be very important for the recipe to taste good. Finally, after some research, I made my own version of vegan tom yum recipe. It needs some special ingredients, but if you can’t find them I will give you some replacements below.
For example, the recipe asks for kaffir lime leaves. I couldn’t find these in the local Asian stores so I used bay leaves instead. It’s a pretty good replacement. Also, galangal is similar to ginger, so I used ginger instead. If you want to buy galangal and lime leaves, you can find them on Amazon (I put the links to the products.).
Hope you’ll like this vegan tom yum recipe! Don’t forget, if you give my recipes a try, take a photo and tag me on Instagram @gourmandelleblog and use the hashtag #gourmandellerecipe. I will feature you on my Facebook page and/or Instagram Stories! 🙂
Vegan Tom Yum Soup (Tom Yam)
Ingredients
- 4 cups vegetable broth or water
- 5 bay leaves I didn't have kaffir lime leaves so I used bay leaves instead
- 3 slices ginger unpeeled, use galangal if you can, I couldn't find it here
- 3 slices lemongrass about 2 inches long
- 1 cup button mushrooms sliced
- 2 Tbsps light soy sauce
- 2 Tbsps coconut oil
- 3 teaspoons vegan "fish" sauce optional, I used this recipe to make it
- 3 Thai chile peppers crushed in a mortar and pestle, seeds removed
- ⅓ can coconut milk
- 1 lime juiced
- 1 tomato diced
- ½ onion diced
- ½ cup tofu cubed
- green onions chopped
Instructions
- In a mortar and pestle, add lemongrass, peppers, ginger or galangal. Crush them so they will release their flavors.
- Heat a saucepan over medium heat. Add the crushed spices above and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the oil and fry for one more minute. Pour in the vegetable broth and bring it to a boil.
- Once boiling, add the bay or lime leaves, mushrooms, vegan fish sauce, light soy sauce, lime juice, tomato, onions, coconut milk, and tofu.
- Boil for 10 minutes.
- Garnish with chopped green onions.
Nutrition
If you make this, please leave a review and rating if you liked this recipe! ★★★★★
Ginnie
Saturday 14th of April 2018
Can't believe this was not made with shrimps! Loved the taste! Thanks for the recipe!
Ruxandra
Saturday 14th of April 2018
You're welcome!
Dusty
Monday 29th of January 2018
Hot and sour soup is a different soup. Tom yum soup is known in English as lemongrass soup owing to the intoxicating aroma and flavor that the lemongrass adds to this soup.
Ruxandra
Monday 29th of January 2018
Didn't know this! Thank you! :) I corrected it now so it won't be confused with the Chinese hot and sour soup. On Wiki it says it's a Thai hot and sour soup, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_yum